The Red Riding Hood
by Simply Ridiculous
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a girl and there was a wolf. A Vampire Diaries twist on Blakeley-Cartwright and Johnson's 'Red Riding Hood'. Tyler would marry her. Klaus would run away with her. The wolf would turn Caroline into one of it's own.
1. Chapter 1

**This is my fanfiction, based on a novel, based on a screenplay. **

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L. , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson. **

**There is no exact date for when this is set, but I always picture it to be around the Middle Ages. **

* * *

From the top of the tree, Caroline could see everything. From here she could overlook the sleepy village of Mystic Falls. Being up here meant she could escape from everyone and get away from her 'need to please'. Caroline was always attempting to find acceptance, but rarely found it.

Even at age seven, she knew that, somehow, she was different from the other villagers. No matter how much she tried, others would notice and would often keep their distance. Even her friends did – with the exception of Bonnie.

Bonnie Bennett was the one person in the world to whom Caroline felt connected. They were practically sisters, and treated each other as such. After Bonnie's parents abandoned her, Bonnie had been taken into the Forbes residence. The only relative Bonnie had left was her Grams, who had been deemed 'unfit' as a guardian because of whispers of witchcraft in the town.

Caroline looked down to the village and thought about why she had climbed the tree in the first place. She wasn't allowed to of course, but that wasn't it. It wasn't for the thrill, as that has been lost last year when she had made it to the top the first time.

She climbed so high because she couldn't breathe down there, in the town. If she didn't get out the unhappiness would take over and she would be trapped trying to fine acceptance when there was none. Up here in her tree, she was free to be herself. There was no one up here to please. Freedom.

"Caroline!"

The voice of Elizabeth 'Liz' Forbes called her back to earth. By the tone of her mothers voice, Caroline knew it was time to go, and began her descent. Looking across she could see the steeply pitched roof of Bonnie's Grams house. Despite town rumours, Caroline and Bonnie were allowed to visit Grams quite often and the kind old woman had soon filled the role of Grandmother in Caroline's life as well.

The house in the middle of the woods looked almost as ancient as Grams herself. Though to Caroline, Grams was one of the most beautiful woman she had ever met, inside and out. She was a strong woman and was not one to back down, something which Caroline admired.

Caroline, herself, leapt of the lowest branch on to the porch. She had been sat in the tree all afternoon, listening to the low murmurer of her mother and Grams from inside the home. Their voices had seemed more cautious today, as if they were keeping secrets...

Before Caroline had time to dwell on the thought, Liz called again.

"Girls. Come on! We need to be back early for tonight."

Quickly going through the open door, so no one could see she had been in the tree, Caroline saw Bonnie sat next to her mother clutching a doll in scraps that Grams had donated.

Caroline wished she could be more like her. Bonnie was kinder, more generous, more patient. Bonnie would have never climbed the tree, knowing it was a dangerous tree to do.

"Girls, It's a full moon tonight. And it's our turn."

Looking back outside, Caroline saw some markings in the earth.

_Niklaus._

Before he left, Niklaus used to leave messages for her by her by drawing arrows in the dirt so she would know where to find him (often hiding in the wood).

He had been gone for months now. They had been inseparable, but after his younger brother had been killed on a full moon, his family had just left.

Niklaus had never judged her. He had understand her.

Grams pulled Caroline and Bonnie into a hug, pulling her back into the room. Grams wished them good luck for the night. Caroline couldn't help but think that Grams smelt of crushed leaves mingled with something deeper, something profound that she could not place.

Soon a wagon, pulled by two workhorses, came over and stopped in front of the house. Caroline's farther, Bill, sat in the back. He pulled the two girls up, and Liz followed.

"Bill," she hissed. "I'm surprised you're still conscious at this late hour." Even as a child, Caroline could pick up on the ever present hostility between her parents.

The wagon jolted off back to the house.

* * *

As they reached home, Liz and Bill spoke to each other in low voices and headed of to the stable, coming back with Vicky their pet goat.

"It's time now." Bill announced in a solemn tone.

"Time for what?" Bonnie asked.

"It's our turn." Bill wasn't a man to sugar coat things for the girls, so told them how Vicky was going to be this months sacrifice.

The two girls said goodbye to their beloved pet as Bill steered Vicky away.

* * *

That night Caroline lay awake in her bed. She had seen Vicky birthed on the floor of the stable and had taken care of the precious goat ever since. She knew what she had to do.

Seeing Bonnie was asleep, Caroline slipped out of bed and climbed out the window.

It was a cold dark night, and the full moon hung lifeless overhead. Caroline headed towards the sacrificial alter. Hearing Vicky's panicked bleating she rushed towards her pet and started untying the tether.

Caroline's breath hitched when she sensed something move besides her. She froze before slowly turning around to see a huge black wolf standing behind her. They looked into each others eyes. Eyes that saw her. Cold, merciless eyes.

Closing her eyes, Caroline waited to feel the snap of it's jaws and the ripping of claws, but felt nothing.

A gush of wind whet past her. When the silence became unbearable, Caroline opened her eyes.

Nothing was left but the broken tether still tied to the stake, lying slack on the dusty ground.

* * *

**Like it? Love it? Loath it? Let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed :)**

* * *

Caroline sat waiting at the edge of the road. 10 years had passed since she had gone out and looked into the eyes of evil. Walking passed the sacrificial alter today, Caroline hadn't even noticed the pile of bones left from the previous nights offering. She'd seen it once a month her whole life and stopped thinking about what it meant. The monthly sacrifice kept the wolf from hurting the villagers, no questions asked.

Ever since her encounter with the wolf, Caroline, too, had stopped asking questions. Though she would often have nightmares about it and would wake up, overwhelmed by the memory. At times like that, Caroline would sneak into Bonnie's bed for comfort.

It was easier to shrug off last nights full moon on a day like today, with everyone in Mystic Falls rushing around, preparing for the harvest. Men ran around with rusty scythes and women ran around cleaning up after them. Soon Caroline saw Bonnie coming down the road, followed by a line of young girls, all doing a strange yet graceful walk. As they got closer, Caroline realized that Bonnie was teaching them how to curtsy.

Bonnie stopped in front of Caroline, and the train of girls stopped, too.

"Hi Care!"

Caroline stood up and smiled at the girl she called her sister.

"Have you heard anything about the camp out?" she asked.

Bonnie leaned in. "Everyone else has permission," She whispered. "Now we have to go."

"Well, now it comes down to convincing Mother."

"You try."

"Are you mad? She'll never say yes to me. She trusts you more."

"Maybe." Bonnie grinned. "In any case, I'm a step ahead of you."

Bonnie held out her basket containing Liz Forbes' favorite sweet cakes. The two girls sent each other knowing smiles before sending the children back and heading home.

* * *

Liz was already home of course, lost in the depressing thoughts of her marriage and her life in Mystic Falls, as she stirred her stew.

"Mother!" Caroline called, tearing Liz from her thoughts.

"Girls." She greeted them with a smile. "You two have a big day today."

Smiling at each other, the two girls began to help Liz, collecting herbs for the stew and cleaning the shelves.

"Good that you girls are helping out like this. I've told you so many times Caroline, you must know how to cook when you start to build your own home. Bonnie already knows."

"I'm seventeen. Let's not rush it." Caroline replied with a frown.

"You are of marriageable age, Care. You're a young woman now."

There was a pause that Bonnie decided to fill.

"So, we're leaving for harvest soon," She began.

"Yes, of course. Your first time." Liz said with pride.

"Some women are staying on afterwards..." Caroline added.

"... For the little camp fire thing." Bonnie continued.

"Jenna is taking some of the girls to camp out..." Caroline said.

"... and we wanted to know if we could go." Bonnie finished.

"With Jenna?" Liz asked and both girls nodded. "Well, I suppose so."

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Seeing the extent of her daughters gratitude, Liz Forbes realized she'd consented to something that maybe she shouldn't have.

* * *

The two girls giggled as they ran down the road to their friends.

Elena stood at the front. A beautiful girl whom always gave Caroline a need to feel envious. Elena was smart and kind, one of those girls everyone couldn't help but love. Especially the Salvatore brothers.

Stood behind her was Katherine. She almost looked exactly like Elena, except for her curly hair and ever-present frown. Many people in the village believed that the girls were related, though no one would say it out loud. Katherine was a spiteful girl and was often too quick with a sharp word.

Finally there was Jenna. Elena's aunt. Jenna could almost pass for a lady... until she opened her mouth.

All five girls headed out through the village gates and up towards the field, falling in with the parade of men.

Elena's brother Jeremy soon caught up with them, kicking a rock with every step. He didn't acknowledge them. Jeremy was an outcast from most of the villagers and mostly kept to himself. Though, Caroline couldn't help but notice the longing looks that he and Bonnie shared.

Jeremy listened as the girls chatted about the boys in the neighboring village who would be coming to help with the harvest.

"Some of them have to be handsome. By the rules of ratios."

Jeremy soon lost interest and ambled away.

The girls soon found themselves walking past the Lockwood blacksmiths. The Lockwoods were one of the richest families in town, so all the girls had their eyes on Tyler Lockwood. A crowd of girls stared as Tyler and his farther, Richard, stood outside repairing axles for the harvest wagons.

Tyler smirked at the five girls and Caroline looked down. Bonnie pulled her along as the girls giggled together. Then linked arms and smiled in unison. They would be free for the night.

And in Mystic Falls, a night of freedom meant everything.

* * *

**This was more of a filler chapter to introduce character. In the next chapter the harvest will begin and Klaus will be making a return...**

**Let me know what you thought :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson. **

* * *

It was early in the morning and the sky hummed with a pink glow. Caroline and her friends watched the men as they started to gather and begin work, hacking the sheets of hay.

A wedding in the village a week earlier had made a big impression on Caroline's friends as their eyes skipped over man after man. No matter how good the men were they would never meet the girls expectations. Somehow Caroline knew there wouldn't be anyone for her, not among the village boys in front of her. They just lacked... something.

The younger men's eyes scanned the girls. They knew this dance. An especially eager harvester stopped in front of a stunned Elena, who just stood still, holding her breath.

"Hi," he said, flashing his teeth, trying hard.

He didn't see Katherine pinch Elena.

"Hello," Katherine said for her.

The girls eyes flickered from one boy to the next, weighing their cons against their pros. Choosing was a matter of importance.

As soon as they had gone, the girls huddled together.

"So many!" Elena cried

"Just the right amount." Jenna corrected, adjusting her skirt.

"One for each of us, with a few left over to fight over me." Katherine declared, having already decided which ones she had singled out.

The girls continued to argue and place claims.

"Oh who cares. Tyler Lockwood is the richest of them all. He isn't sore on the eyes either." Katherine muttered thoughtfully.

"You know he's not going to marry any of us village girls," Bonnie pointed out. "We're all too poor."

The girls saw the village authority and harvest overseer, Alaric, coming towards them, so they trudged out to the field and began work, raking the grass into rows for drying. Caroline wished she could join in with her friends excitement, but she didn't have the heart for it. She couldn't help but feel like something big was going to happen. Something bad.

Katherine smirked, seeing Caroline's disinterest. _More for me to choose from_, she thought, checking out the men on the field. She watched as another wagon of men appeared, rolling to a stop. The girls slowed down their work and watched as the men toddled out.

Uninterested, Caroline returned to work on the field. She could sense her friends scrutinizing the new arrivals.

She wasn't sure what made her look up again, it felt like she could see something out the corner of her eye, compelling her to look. So she did. Looking up, she saw a heart-stoppingly handsome young man. He had curled light-brown hair, wearing all black, in contrast to his pearl-white skin. He looked wild and haunted.

Caroline felt her breath empty out of her.

_Niklaus and I had spent the entire day in the fields. It was our last day together and we were trying to make the most of it, forgetting the rest of the world, chasing after each other. Now we were just sat down, holding on to each other, no words needing to be said._

_A few days ago Niklaus' younger brother Henrik had been killed by the wolf that haunts our village. This morning his parents had announced they would be leaving Mystic Falls._

_Mikael, his farther, appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Nik's arm, yanking him up and dragging him by a hand telling him it was time to leave. _

_I watched hopelessly as the villagers gathered round with weapons and watched the Mikaelsons leave Mystic Falls, shouting after them._

_"Witches!"_

_"That's right! Get out of here!"_

_"And never come back!"_

But now...

It can't be... Caroline thought to herself. It had been ten years and she had given up hope and had stopped looking for the arrows in the ground. He couldn't be the same person... could he?

Her friends watched on in concern, seeing Caroline fixated with the mysterious man. He was the most beautiful and clearly the most dangerous. He kept his head down, not meeting the eyes of the other villagers. He answered to no one.

Alaric soon pushed her back to work, but Caroline's thoughts revolved around the man. He was just the boy she had played with, but older now. Right?

Caroline tried to watch the boy who may be Niklaus, as he set to his work, but others kept getting in the way.

Finally, she caught a good angle. It was Niklaus. She was sure. Her stomach did a flip, and her heart pounded. Before it had been a innocent infatuation, childlike, but now... she felt something else.

She longed to be near him, to know him again. Was he the same? Would her still remember her?

Then he looked up, and his gaze met hers across the field. Looking into his deep blue eyes and she knew without a doubt. Then he looked back down as if nothing had happened.

Did he not know her? Forgotten her? Or maybe he belonged to someone else now...

Caroline just stood there, dumbstruck. Should she go to him?

But Niklaus just continued with his work on the field. He did not look up again.

* * *

**Do you think Klaus has forgotten Caroline? Why do you think villagers run the Mikaelsons out of town? What did you think?**

**Coming soon... Tyler sees that Klaus is back, We find out why the villagers hate the Mikaelsons and Caroline and Klaus finally talk... **


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for not updating sooner, but most of my exams are now over, giving me more time to write :) Hope you enjoy!**

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson. **

* * *

"Caroline."

Kneeling on the floor, trying to up a sheaf of hay, she heard a strong male voice above her. _He remembers. _Caroline froze, unable to look up.

"Caroline?"

Butterflies in her tummy, Caroline slowly raised her head – only to see Tyler Lockwood holding out a jug of water.

"Are you all right?" He asked, concern colouring his tone.

"Yes." She replied, unable to full hide her disappointment.

"I thought maybe you'd gone deaf from working too hard." Tyler teased, dark eyebrows raising in question.

"Oh. No." Feeling embarrassed that it wasn't Niklaus, Caroline was no longer feeling sociable.

Ignoring the water, she reached out and took the copper mallet he was holding in his other hand, and brought it to her cheek, cooling herself down.

She looked around, watching the movement of the harvest, angling past Tyler for a better view. Unfortunately, Tyler moved with her and was blocking Niklaus from sight.

Handing the mallet back to Tyler, she noticed his smirk and placed her hand to her cheek – it came away black. There was a round, soot-stained circle on each of her cheeks.

Caroline declined Tyler's handkerchief and wiped her face on her sleeve. She knew the water was just an excuse for him to be out on the fields. He got left out of a lot of things because of his families status. It was hard for him, she knew, to be in a class of his own. Looking down at his new leather boots, though, which were so shiny they reflected, and any sympathy she had for him was gone. To buy boots like those whist others were around him who didn't have enough to eat seemed... wrong.

"I know they're stupid," He said, and Caroline realized that she hadn't been subtle. "Embarrassing. But they're a gift from my mother."

_Still not okay_, she thought stubbornly. She tried to see if Niklaus had noticed her talking with Tyler. But he seemed to have no interest. Dejected, Caroline moved back to work.

Tyler muttered that he needed to offer water to others, but as he moved down the line, Caroline could feel his eyes lingering on her, longer than they should have.

Tyler knew Caroline was in one of her moods; that she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. As he moved away, though, he couldn't help but watch her. Rumors had circulated around Mystic Falls that she had seen the wolf as a child, that it had changed her. She would never tell, but it was a small town, and there were no secrets.

He'd always known that Caroline was different, but he'd always felt a little different himself. Tyler thought maybe they could be different together.

* * *

The sun blazed in the sky, indicating the lunch break. Heading to the shade, the men broke of into one group and the women into another.

"Just look at me!" Elena laughed, twirling around as hayseed sprinkled out of her hair around her. "I feel like a cow."

"You're covered in the stuff." Jenna scolded, pulling bits of hay out of her hair.

"Quite twirling like an idiot!" hissed Katherine. "Don't you want to look grown up for the boys?"

Caroline wasn't listening to her friends arguments. Her eyes were following Niklaus as he joined the rest of the men around the barrels of water. He glanced up at her again, and Caroline froze. Should she say something? She waited dumbly, watching his eyes flicker, praying he would recognize her.

The men behind Niklaus nudged him, and he picked up his bag, pushing past the rest of the men, forgetting his food.

One of the girls tugged at Caroline's skirt, and she reluctantly followed them, watching him go.

* * *

At the river's edge, a few of the village men were swinging from a rope tied to a long branch, daring each other into the water.

"Tyler, go!" One of the men called out form the bank.

Tyler hurled himself off the edge, letting go at the rope at the highest point. Plunging into the water he swam a few strokes before resurfacing. Another man had appeared.

Tyler recognized him instantly. It was Niklaus.

Tyler's heart pumped. Needing time to think, he took a deep breath and submerged himself into the water. It was peaceful under the water; no dead uncles. And no uncle killers. His lunges started to burn and he pushed himself upwards and burst through the surface. He looked to the shore and the laborers were gone.

Niklaus was gone with them.

Climbing out of the water, some of the other boys looked on nervously. His father looked especially concerned. Richard watched his son from the shore, but Tyler refused to meet his gaze.

He tried to push away the horrible memory of the day Niklaus left town. But nothing he could do would remove the memory of his father, a tough man, crying over the body of uncle Mason lying in the road.

* * *

Seeing Tyler Lockwood staring at him in horror sickened Klaus. Just like it had done on that day years ago. He had to leave before Tyler emerged from the water again, so he had told the men they should help set up the women's camp.

Why had he returned to the village? For so many years, Klaus had avoided Mystic Falls, the site of awful accidents.

Despite everything, there was always something about Mystic Falls that called to him. But he was afraid of being there. With _her_. His memory loved her too much. They had only been children at the time, both innocent. Better to keep her as she'd been, his memory safe and unspoiled.

But she was still here, and he couldn't help but look. She was beautiful. Like an angel. A beauty that almost hurt; he didn't feel worthy to even look at her.

But it prompted memories of a past that he had tried to forget.

The horn sounded from the field, signalling the end of lunch. It was time to back to work.

_Why did I return?_

* * *

Alaric was pairing up the women, who would stomp the grass flat in the wagons, with the men, who would heave armfuls up to them. The men were already lined up and as Caroline approached her gaze was drawn to the middle of the line. To Niklaus. His liquid eyes were fixed on hers, and the distance between them seemed to radiate with heat. Without thinking Caroline sidestepped a few women for a place in the line. She would be paired with Niklaus.

Alaric walked down the aisle between men and women, assigning partners. He pushed Niklaus and Caroline together.

Her pulse raced as they worked all afternoon, close together. A vibe seemed to radiate between the pair, yet he never looked at her once. Was Caroline just imagining it?

The day drew to a close and stacking her final bushel, Caroline saw Niklaus bending down for his sack, about to leave.

It was now or never.

"Niklaus..."

He stood up straight, his back to her.

"It's just 'Klaus' now."

A silence followed. Before Caroline could stop herself, she spoke up again.

"Well... Klaus," Letting his new name roll off her tongue. "Do you remember-?"

Klaus turned around and stepped towards her. She felt the heat flare up between them.

"How could I forget."

She felt weak with joy.

The horn blew again, signalling the end of the day and the start of the camp fire celebration.

Klaus held her eyes for a moment before turning and walking away. Caroline just watched as he disappear into the trees.

* * *

**Let me know what you think! Reviews help fuel me on :P xx**


	5. Chapter 5

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far :)**

* * *

Down by the river, the villagers were roasting another bird over a fire, ready for a camp fire feast. The ruddy smell of the freshly cut hay, rolled up into unruly bales, had awakened the villagers' animal instincts. They felt lustful in their exhaustion.

Caroline watched the men set up huge kegs that, when empty, could be used to roll down hills. Kegs that both Caroline and Ni – well, Klaus, had hid in as children to get away from Mikael.

Her memories of her time with Klaus flickered through her mind. _"How could I forget." _The new memory sliced through the old one.

Jenna and Bonnie led Caroline by the hands down to the food, ready to join in with the feast.

* * *

Thoughts of Klaus swirled around her mind, demanding her attention, and she couldn't focus on her friends mindless chatter. Excusing herself, Making her way back from the river, Caroline saw that Klaus had returned and that Alaric had stopped in front of him.

"We're clearing pines tomorrow and could use a man like you. We'll hire you on."

"You're a good worker," Bill added. Caroline was surprised her father had spoken, but pleased.

Klaus listened, looking doubtful.

"We'll provide you with an axe," Alaric said.

Klaus smirked and whipped his own axe out from a back pocket, spinning it. "I've got my own. I want double, to chop trees."

Alaric raised an eyebrow and reluctantly nodded in agreement. The boy was a good worker.

"Okay." Turning to address the crowds, Alaric shouted out. "Men on the big rocks other side of the river! The women will stay on this side."

Groaning, the two groups split up heading in their own directions. With a groan of her own, Caroline head back to her friends, with one final glance to Klaus.

"I hope we'll be safe out here," Jenna muttered, partly to herself. "Maybe Alaric could stay."

"Jenna," Elena coxed. "There is nothing to worry about. The wolf took a lamb last night from the alter. For the next month we are safe!"

Jenna smiled, reassured, and the girls made their way, pushing through the crowds, to get to their camp.

A pair of hands stopped Caroline. It was Klaus. Leaning in from behind her, he whispered into her ear. "Find me later."

Slowly Caroline turned her head, trying to see if he was really there or if it was her imagination. "How?",

A smile crept onto his face, and she could see his dimples. "Watch for my light."

All Caroline could do was nod, before pushing back into the crowd to try and catch up with the others.

* * *

After the men set off in boats to their camp-site across the river, the girls gathered in the tent they were sharing with Jenna. Slipping some herbs from Grams into her tea, they waited for Jenna to drift off to sleep before huddling in a circle inside the tent. Katherine, who had planned the whole thing, coughed loudly for a test. Jenna did not stir and the girls were free to talk openly.

Elena couldn't contain her excitement. "Caroline, I saw Tyler looking at you today."

"I don't know what to do," Caroline confessed. "I think he was, too. I mean, he can be nice. But that's... it."

"_Nice_? Caroline, he's _rich_!"

"I would kill to be in your position," Katherine muttered. "You shouldn't throw the opportunity away."

"I just don't know," Caroline mused, thinking about Klaus. "What is love supposed to feel like?"

"If you don't know what it feels like, then obviously you're not in it." Bonnie snapped uncharacteristically.

A silence followed.

"Can you believe Klaus is back?" Elena asked, quickly changing the subject.

"No," Caroline whispered, a smile creeping on her face. "I really can't."

"He is so unbelievably gorgeous."

"I think he looks like a villain!" Bonnie whispered loudly, leaning in to make her point.

Katherine looked thoughtful. "Do you think he's killed people?"

"Like who?" Elena wondered.

"Like women."

All the girls looked uncomfortable, and Katherine continued. "What I can't believe is that you used to be his best friend." She said looking pointedly at Caroline.

"They used to do everything together," Bonnie said grudgingly. Caroline was surprised. Bonnie did not seem like herself.

"Before he became a murderer!" Katherine delighted in saying.

The girls all stopped to consider this. Caroline had always been afraid to know they precise details of what had happened. It had been an accident. As Klaus and his family had raced to get out of down before the next full moon, after the death of the youngest Mikaelson Henrik, a mob had followed them, blaming them for the broken peace with the wolf, saying that Klaus and Henrik had provoked the beast back into killing people again. The horses pulling the get-away wagon had reared up in fear, frightened at the villagers and their torches – and Tyler's uncle Mason had been struck and killed.

Caroline only knew the basics of the incident, being only a child at the time. It had never been spoken off since – Mystic Falls was like that. Traumas came and went. The villagers had gotten over it, though Caroline knew that Tyler never had.

Pulling away from thoughts of the past, Katherine pulled out some jars of oak bark beer that she had taken from her father.

"I figured he wouldn't notice a few jarfuls missing," She said with a mischievous grin.

The girls took it in turns to down small swigs, grimacing as they did so.

"I heard it can blind you." Bonnie said with a scowl, reaching for the bottle.

Caroline tried it and spat it out. "Tastes like rotten porridge."

Katherine glared at her offended. "Fine. More for us then. Elena?" She offered the jar over, but Elena shook her head.

"I've heard about the blinding thing too." She looked concerned. "Otherwise I would," She added quickly.

"Suit yourself." Katherine sniffed, chugging another lot down before turning to address Caroline. "Tyler may have been looking at you today, but it was _my_ shoulder he touched as he passed by in church this week."

"Touched how?" Elena asked.

"Very gently and sweetly." She answered, attempting to demonstrate on Caroline, though it came out more of a leer, causing all the girls to burst out laughing.

The conversation lulled further into the night, and Bonnie had fallen asleep, head in Caroline's lap.

"Do you ever wonder," A tipsy Katherine inquired, leaning in, "What Tyler looks like... without his clothes on?"

"Eww! No! Do you?"

She smiled devilishly and tossed her hair. "I guess I do." Causing the girls to collapse in fits of giggles once more, causing Bonnie to wake up.

In the corner of her eye, Caroline saw Klaus' signal,a candle flickering on the other side of the river.

"Let's go!" She announced, nervous yet thrilled at the same time.

Bonnie looked up at her foggily. "What's the rush?" She questioned, eyes narrowing. Caroline internally winced. Bonnie knew her too well.

"Because..." Caroline thought quickly. "We're wasting time. We need to cross the river before the tea wears off"

The girls looked at each other, then back to the river. Caroline was right.

It was time.

* * *

**Let me know what you thought!**

**Mini teaser for the next chapter:**

**"We should have been safe tonight!"**

**"The blood moon has returned!"**

**Until next time x**


	6. Chapter 6

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson. **

**Thank you as always for the support, especially to SpringOfMay, arielmermaid and champagnekiss for the constant support and kind words that really keep me going and make writing even more enjoyable! :) I hope you continue to enjoy...**

* * *

As the row-boat slipped downstream, the paddling girls never suspected that Caroline was steering them in the direction of Klaus' candlelight signal. Although the light had now disappeared, Caroline could still pinpoint the spot in the darkness that she had to head to.

The girls could see three different camp-fires buried between the trees up from shore and began rowing competently towards them. Seeing Klaus' flashing light again, Caroline hooked the boat left. As it veered, Bonnie lost her oar. Leaning out to recover it, she moved her weight too quickly, causing the river to rush over the lip and into the boat.

The girls squealed when the water gushed in and immediately knew that their cover was blown.

"Jump in and flip the boat over! Hide underneath!" Caroline tried to whisper and shout at the same time.

The girls each took a deep breath and plunged into the water, pulling the boat upside down as they went. Reaching for each other underwater, they pushed themselves under the boat, rising up to the air pocket.

No one was happy. Their hair was dripping wet and their dresses soaked, after all they'd done to be pretty for the boys.

All at once the situation struck them as riotously funny, and together they convulsed with laughter, trying not to make any more noise. Pulling themselves together, they all listened out, straining to hear if there was any movement at the shore.

After a moment of hearing nothing but the water sloshing against the boat, Caroline decided that they were probably safe.

"Okay, here we go. One, two, three – lift!" Caroline said in commanding voice. The girls followed her and the rowing boat landed with a plop, right way up this time. The girls waded through the shallow water to the shore, trailing their boat behind them.

Reaching the shore the girls pulled themselves onto land, through the bushes, tying their boat to a tree out of sight.

Caroline looked for Klaus as they made their way to the nearest camp fire. Bonnie raced up first but quickly came back again, whispering, "It's Alaric!"

"Hello? Who's down there?" Came a voice from the cluster of men.

"Excuse us," Bonnie called back up, putting on the voice of a old woman. The four girls huddled together, desperately repressing giggles.

The boys must be at the next fire.

As they neared the next light, Caroline could see that Klaus was not among them. These harvesters _were_ happy to see the girls approaching but also seem surprised.

"You girls came all the way out here?"

"Yeah!"

"How come?"

The girls looked at one another in disbelief.

"Um..."

Elena jumped in. "Sorry. We always come over to this side when we camp out." It wasn't a lie. They'd never gone camping before.

The boys looked at each other, then back at the girls.

"We're not complaining."

The girls shrugged, the boys were not smart, but they were fun. The boys pulled them towards the fire, laughing slightly at how bedraggled and wet the girls were, but not enough to embarrass them. They were gentlemen, and even tried to look away from Katherine's blouse, which had drooped even lower. She did nothing to correct the situation.

The four girls started to dry off and they conversed around the flames.

"Was that you with the blinking light?" Bonnie asked the guys.

"Blinking light?"

"Where?"

The boys questioned, not wanting to have missed something.

Bonnie frowned. _Guess not._

The group was too preoccupied to notice Caroline slip out of the firelight and into the darkness.

* * *

Feeling her way blindly across the dark field, Caroline made her way towards where she had last seen the flickering light.

She waited, scanning the void for Klaus, but she could see or hear nothing. After a while just standing there, just forlornly waiting for another person made her feel foolish and pathetic. Suddenly she hated herself and hated Klaus. Turning back to go back to the camp fire, she promised herself she'd never put herself in a position to feel stupid again. It was then she saw a flickering glow of a candle in the distance. Her resolve vanished in a heartbeat.

She stepped into the tangled dark of the forest. The candle disappeared.

"Klaus?" Caroline called out in a whisper.

She stepped cautiously, wondering if she had really seen a light or if she was going mad. Both theories seemed possible.

But what was that on the ground? A marking? In the shape of... an arrow?

As she bent down for closer inspection, she felt a wet nudge at her back. A faint puff of air. Her breath snagged.

"Get on, sweetheart." she heard as she turned.

It was the damp nose of a horse. Klaus was sat on top, outlined in the night above her, loosely holding the reins.

A hand reached down and she took it. He had a strong grip, and without even thinking about it, Caroline let herself be lifted up, and she slid onto the horse, her body fitting into Klaus'. She moved her arms around his waist and tightened them when they began to move. They didn't speak. Caroline found that she didn't need to know who this new 'Klaus' was, that it was all right that she didn't, that in fact it was better not to.

Klaus found what he was looking for – a path that cut through the forest. She held tight to him as he sped up. They rode, fast and free, through the woods. His body close to hers, white heat radiating between them. The horse sped up even more and Caroline felt like she was flying.

Eventually, Klaus had to turn the horse to circle back. Letting the horse walk, Caroline snuggled into him, no words needed. A man's voice suddenly shattered the silence, shouting, "Hey! That's my horse! Get back here!"

Caroline hadn't registered that the horse wasn't Klaus'. She smiled in disbelief in the dark. Klaus _was_ dangerous.

"I'll wait here while you sneak the horse back."

"Don't go anywhere," he said, letting her off.

Caroline watched him lead the horse back, her chest felt squeezed, like her heat had expanded too much and was trying to burst out.

Maybe that's what love felt like.

Caroline heard a loud cracking of branches and looked around. Seeing nothing, she looked skyward.

It took her a moment to realize that the moon was full. And red.

She frowned slightly in confusion. The full moon had taken place last night, so how...? Caroline blood ran cold in understanding. It was something that elders had spoken about in fear.

_Blood moon._

There was an unearthly growl in the distance.

Caroline sprang into life, rushing out of the forest and down to the river's edge, which had a swarm of zigzagging people, pushing and shoving, trying to get to safety. Caroline saw Elena rushing towards a boat just off the shore in panic, and ran after her, splashing into the water up to waist.

"Elena, wait!"

"Get in!" Elena pulled on Caroline's hand and ushered her into the boat.

"Wait! Where's Bonnie?"

"She and Katherine went in the first boat." Elena replied, motioning to a vessel half way across the river.

Caroline looked back to the fading darkness of the forest. There was another boat, with not enough men to fill it. _Klaus will find a place on it_, Caroline assured herself, an anxious sensation spreading in her chest.

* * *

"The full moon was _last_ night!" a voice protested from one of the wagons everyone was piling into. Alaric had them ready and waiting as the boats emptied.

"We should have been safe tonight."

"The blood moon has returned!"

As the wagon made stops along the rows of houses, there were shouts: "Wolf night! Everybody inside!"

Caroline hopped off and dashed to her own cottage, bumping into a panicking Liz.

Seeing her daughter, Liz breathed a sigh of relief, and enveloped Caroline in a hug.

"Oh, thank God."

"Mother?" Caroline wondered whether Liz knew about them sneaking off the from the women's camp.

"Your farther is out looking for you girls!"

"Sorry." The news didn't seem to have reached her.

"Where's Bonnie?"

"She went with Katherine." Caroline was pleased with herself. It was true without implicating them in any wrongdoing.

Liz visibly relaxed at the news.

"I'm sure your farther will stop by there. Let's get you into bed."

* * *

Lying on her bed, Caroline missed Bonnie's presence in the room. Watching the rain out side turn to hail. Winter was coming. Caroline wondered about Klaus, watching the dangerous red glow in the sky.

That night, Caroline dreamed she was flying.

* * *

**I would like to take a moment to point out that you shouldn't use the t.v series to help guess who is the wolf. Just because Tyler and Klaus are hybrids in the show doesn't make them any more or any less likely to be a werewolf. Treat everyone equally guilty until proven innocent.**

**I should also point out that NO ONE is safe from the wolf. Many will not survive the days of the blood moon. **

**So let me know what you think, and who do you think the wolf could be...?**

**Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Also I want to assure everyone that Klaroline will happen (I don't support Forwood at all) and eventually there will be a reason why this fic is rated M ;) **

* * *

"I remember when I was a girl," Liz was saying. "Eleven years old when I saw my fist blood moon. I was young and crazy about a boy. It was almost romantic." She smiled, running her hand in her hair. "If it hadn't been so awful, of course."

Caroline, lost in her own thoughts, wasn't listening, her mind was leaping from one thought to another. She decided that she wasn't worried about Klaus, because he seemed to know things other people didn't.

She felt he could teach her his secrets and tell her about the world. But, she reminded herself, he was only there for the harvest... and her family would never allow her to be with him because of his history in the town.

Sighing, Caroline continued with her chores, putting all her weight into kneading the dough. Bonnie was much better at baking than Caroline was, and ordinarily Bonnie would have helped her after finishing her own. But she had gotten off easy, staying the night at Katherine's.

"Anyway" Liz concluded, realizing that Caroline wasn't listening. "I'd say that we've got enough biscuits done now." She glanced over to see the unappealing brick Caroline was holding. "We'll... save your dough for later." She added.

Caroline happily withdrew and started to walk out the room, as her mother called on from behind her.

"Caroline, whilst I take lunch to the men, would you please fetch some water from the well?"

"Yes," Caroline said, perhaps too quickly, "Yes, I'll go."

* * *

At the well, Caroline pulled on the rope, retrieving the pail of water. It was the perfect opportunity to go see Klaus. Smiling at herself, she set off for the area where the men were clearing the trees.

Alaric had assembled a group of well-trained men, and they were delivering heavy blows to the trees. The men worked as a group, doing the same motions and wearing the same clothes. But Klaus stood out. He had slung his shirt over his shoulder, revealing his taunt muscles. Leaning against a tree, Caroline watched his beautiful body torquing with each swing of the axe. It felt naughty seeing him like this, but also right – she already felt like he was his.

"These acacias. They're too thick-skimmed," Klaus informed Alaric before burying his axe in a nearby tree stump and left for a saw.

Seeing his axe unattended, Caroline darted forward to grab it and rush back behind a tree.

She wondered how long it would take Klaus to notice the stolen axe, but she didn't have to wait long. He soon reappeared and immediately looked over to her hiding place. Her blood quickened. He was glad to see her, she could tell, but as he approached he was somber, not giving her the warm welcome she had expected.

Something was wrong.

He drew her further into the cover of foliage so they wouldn't be overheard. She reached out for him and her fingers ran through the curs of his hair.

"Klaus."

He shushed her, his finger grazing her lips, causing her to frown in confusion.

"Why so sad?" She heard herself flirting of all things. She couldn't help it; her heart felt like it was about to burst out her chest.

"Give me the axe."

"What will you give me for it?" She replied.

He stepped toward her, but she backed up to a pine tree. He moved very close, but not touching. Seeing how serious he was, she surrendered, gently handing over the axe, pressing her hands against her chest.

"Caroline..." Klaus looked sad now. "They didn't tell you."

"What?" Caroline smiled. He was handsome when he was worried. "Tell me what?"

"I heard your mother talking to your father earlier," Klaus said, stalling. He fingered the shoulder of her dress.

"And?" Caroline said impatiently.

"Caroline, sweetheart." He saw that he'd have to tell her. He pressed closer. "You've been betrothed."

Her hands dropped from his chest and she stared straight at him.

"To... Tyler Lockwood." It wasn't easy for him to say the name.

Caroline felt her stomach drop.

"No," she said, not wanting to believe him. "No, no,"

Klaus stood mute, wishing he could tell her what she wanted to hear.

"It's not possible." she said.

"It is. I'm telling you, it's done."

"I mean... what if... we could..." Caroline's thoughts were incoherent. "What do we do?" she whispered urgently.

Klaus paced back and forth in front of her, a dark expression shading his face.

"Do you want to marry him?" Klaus stopped in front of her, pressing close.

"You know I don't."

"Do I? Do we know each other any more? I'm not the same person you knew, love"

"You are." She insisted. "I know who you are. I know you." She reached out and took his hand in hers, entwining their fingers.

His face softened. "All right then. There may be one way." he said, looking out to the horizon.

Caroline swelled with hope.

"We could run away." he said, coming in even closer, almost touching his forehead with hers. "Run away with me," he repeated, smiling a real smile.

"Where would we go?"

His lips brushed her ear. "Anywhere you want," he said. "The sea, the city, the mountains..." he let his voice trail off with promise.

Anywhere. With him.

He pulled back to look at her. "You're afraid."

"No, I'm not."

"You'd leave your home? You're family? You're whole life?"

There was a short pause.

"I think I would. Anything to be with you." She heard herself saying it and realized it was true.

"Anything."

"Yes." It scared her, that she really meant it.

"Yes?"

"Yes."

Klaus let it sink in. They heard a cuff of a horse and spied a hitched wagon in the distance, unattended, ready to go. No one in sight. It was fate.

"If we're going to go, we need to go now," Caroline finally spoke.

"We'd be half a day's ride before anyone knew we were gone," he agreed with a pleased smirk.

"Let's go then."

"I'll race you." he took her hand as they took off towards the horse.

Feeling the charge of freedom, she felt weightless, picturing the life that they would have.

* * *

It was about that time when Jeremy found what he was not looking for.

Walking across the field he stared down at the floor, not making eye contact with anyone else. Because of this he saw what none of the other men had. Drops of red on the floor. Drops of blood.

Looking around, Jeremy saw that no one had noticed, and set of following the trail.

"Hello?"

Turning around the corner, he saw something terrible, something that stopped him dead in his tracks. He stumbled to a halt and felt his heart shatter into a million pieces.

What he saw was too awful.

Torn flesh, and the dirty hem of a yellow dress.

He hovered for a moment, his brain refusing to fully process what was in front of him. Denial was good.

Jeremy sprinted to the village, tripping over his own feet as he did so.

* * *

Running towards the wagon, Caroline felt impossibly free. They world was hers. She laughed out loud for the joy of it...

_Dong._

_Dong._

_Dong._

The third toll of the church bells hovered in the air and everything became still. Someone in the village had died. Caroline froze.

_Dong._

A fourth toll shattered the silence. Klaus and Caroline looked at each other first in confusion, then in awful understanding.

The fourth bell meant only one thing: _Wolf attack._

She had only heard the fourth bell once, when Henrik had died.

With those bells, Caroline knew. Life would never be the same.

* * *

**Hope you are all enjoying reading this as much as i am enjoying writing it :)**

**Let me know what you think x**


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry for not updating sooner, but I have been away :/**

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

Jeremy stood out of breath at the stairs at the local tavern, knowing that he was not allowed to go in. He watched as villagers walked in and out, studiously ignoring him. Jeremy just stood there hopelessly, tears brimming, mouth open, unable to will himself to step forward and speak.

His breaths came in loud gasps, but nobody took any notice. Jeremy was an outcast in the village. The noise in the tavern was deafening. Not knowing what else to do, afraid that no one would listen, Jeremy yelled. But he was right, no one wanted to listen.

An old woman hobbled out of the bar, glaring at him.

"How dare you?" she asked cruelly.

Jeremy fell mute, breathing heavily, a blush lighting up his face. Feeling sure he wouldn't cause any more trouble, the woman turned to go back inside.

But Jeremy yanked roughly at the fold of her dress.

"Cursed child," she muttered.

The tavern quieted, taken aback; he'd been too violent with her. Jeremy froze, shocked at his own actions. Someone snickered, tearing apart the quiet, prompting a taunting laughing fest. Behind the laughter, Jeremy knew, was fear. No one understood him.

From inside the tavern, Matt noticed that Jeremy was on the verge of hysterics and walked up to him, concern crossing over his face.

Seeing Matt come closer, what Jeremy wanted to say was "Bonnie is lying in the wheat field mauled to death."

Stammering, though, all he could say was "W-w-wolf."

Everyone who was passing by stopped as all movement and sound in the village came to a halt. Finally, everyone listened.

It wasn't long before the bell began to sound.

* * *

The bell clanged louder, four bells at a time as Caroline ran through the fields towards the trail of villagers.

"Don't believe the boy," Someone was saying.

"Of course not. He probably just saw a wild dog and got confused." Someone else agreed.

Caroline pushed past and ran ahead of them. Reaching the center of the fields, she saw some villagers already there, divided into clumps. Seeing her, the quieted and held back, respectful. She found Elena, Jenna and Katherine tangled in an embrace, holding each other up.

"Who is it?" Caroline demanded.

They all just looked at her. No one could say it.

The crowd backed away so that Caroline could see her mother and father standing alone, their faces drawn in horror. She knew it before Jenna whispered it.

"Bonnie."

Caroline ran and fell towards the girl who she had called a sister's lifeless body. She was barely recognisable now, her body mauled and mutilated by the beast, her clothes tattered and torn.

Pulling off her shawl, Caroline covered Bonnie. She lifted her sister's hand to her cheek and felt a few shreds of paper in the cool palm, one last secret. It looked like the remains of a note, but the writing was impossible to make out. Caroline shoved the pieces into her pocket.

The hand felt clammy and Caroline could feel the clotting blood against her cheek. She finally gave into the exhilaration of grief, the rest of the world around her muffled and forgotten as she wept for her lost sister.

All too soon Caroline felt a pair of hands intruding on her, trying to direct her away so the body – so Bonnie – could be moved. But she could not let go. If she did it meant that she would have accepted it, that it was final. Her sister, her friend, her Bonnie would really be gone and wouldn't come back. Caroline _couldn't_ let go. She had to be pried away from the site, tears streaming down her cheeks.

As she was dragged away, the first snow of the season began to fall.

Winter was early.

* * *

**Sorry that this chapter was very short, but I promise I will post a much longer chapter soon!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed :)**

* * *

Within an hour the cottage was full of people. Mourners milled about aimlessly, in shock. The family was grieving separately, stunned. Everything was different now, and could never be the same again. Liz just stood still, staring out the window, unable to bear what was inside.

Caroline wondered if her mother was disappointed with what she had left, now that the more beautiful, the more loving, the more obedient 'daughter' was gone.

Across the room, Bill chugged on his flask. He wouldn't look at anyone, just staring at empty space. Caroline wished he could be less hard on himself. It seemed as if he felt responsible for Bonnie's death, for not protecting her.

The villagers were swamped in sympathy, saying the empty things that all people say to grieving families.

"She's in a better place now."

"Good thing you have Caroline."

"You could always have another..."

It made Caroline feel sick. She couldn't stand to look at them.

Jeremy and the girls were dressing Bonnie's body, washing it. Swaddling her with flowers seemed obscene now.

Caroline stood besides them but did not move or speak. Her friends wanted to support her but didn't know how, so in the end they just backed off and left her alone.

The villagers trailed into silence, unsure how to act, what the next step would be. The blood moon would rise for a second time tonight, that much the elders in the village could agree. Men looked at their daughters and wondered who would be next.

"Why does the Wolf hate us?" Jeremy finally asked. For once people listened. They didn't have an answer.

A knock on the door dispelled the tension.

"It's the Lockwoods!" Caroline vaguely heard her mother say. Everyone looked up as Carol Lockwood, Richard Lockwood and Tyler Lockwood entered. Katherine offered a smile at the youngest, but Tyler searched only for Caroline. When her eyes didn't even flicker in his direction, when she shrank back from him, he bowed respectfully and didn't try to approach her.

He knew Caroline liked to keep things to herself.

Sensing Tyler was there, and her mother's displeasure with how she treated him, Caroline just turned away to retreat up into the loft bed she had shared with Bonnie.

Carol gave Caroline a pat on the head as she walked past, before moving towards her grieving friend.

"I am so sorry for your loss." she said to a broken and stunned Liz.

Richard followed, moving to shake Bill's hand.

"Bonnie was a good girl."

The past tense still came as a shock. Nobody noticed Jeremy storm out of the room.

Caroline closed her eyes to try and stop the knew tears that were threatening to spill. She turned away from the rest of the world and buried her head into the bed, surrounded by the scent of her lost sister, Caroline let herself be pulled into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

* * *

Caroline woke up, enjoying the blissful moment of ignorance before all the memories of what had happened came rushing back.

Looking up she saw that the Lockwoods still lingered and her friends dozed in there stools. Her mother was seated at the table alone. Seeing her daughter awake, Liz moved to the loft.

"There is good news in the mist of this difficult time, Caroline." She said, climbing the ladder.

"I have already been told that I am to marry Tyler. Just tell me if it is true." Caroline whispered back, her voice void of any emotion.

"Yes, Caroline," Her mother smiled. "Yes, it is true."

Caroline felt the life being torn out of her. In this moment she realized how strong her feelings for Klaus were. She had lost him in the commotion of the day and now she longed for him, but felt guilty for feeling that way under the circumstances.

"It feels wrong to talk of this now."

"You're right," Liz admitted sadly. "Now is not the time, we can talk about this later." She stroked Caroline's hair. "But it's true that Tyler is you fiancé now. Let him offer his condolences."

Caroline looked down to see that Tyler was staring at her. "I barely even know him."

"You'll learn to. That's what marriage is."

Caroline would not. She could not. "Not now, Mother."

Liz sighed, and lent forward so that no one else could here. "You should know something... I didn't love your father when we were married. I was in love with someone else." Caroline stared at her, and Liz continued. "His mother wouldn't allow us to be together. But I grew to love your father. He gave me two beautiful daughters. Now go down there. Please."

"I said no." Caroline snapped, holding back her unasked questions.

Tyler, meanwhile, witnessed the tense scene. He turned to Bill.

"Come with us to the tavern. Let the women grieve in their own way." He said, laying a hand on the older man's shoulder.

Bill nodded, glad to leave.

Richard, too, looked grateful to escape the overbearing atmosphere building up in the small cottage.

Tyler looked up and gave Caroline a nod before exiting the cottage with the two men.

* * *

"I can't believe she's gone."

Caroline finally climbed down the ladder and made her way towards Bonnie's body. She had no tears left.

Elena sadly fingered Bonnie's dress. Katherine secretly covered Bonnie's sheepskin coat possessively, hoping that someone might offer it to her.

"How is it that nobody saw anything last night?" Carol Lockwood asked, breaking the silence. She turned to Caroline. "Were you not with her?"

Caroline sadly shock her head, not looking up. Her thoughts moved on to the paper she had found in Bonnie's hand. It must have been a note, but what did it say? Was it an invitation out to the fields? From whom?

"The beast lured her away." A distraught Liz jumped in.

"She was with you." Elena turned to Katherine. "I know I saw her in your boat."

"She _was_ in my boat, then she said she was meeting you."

"I just don't understand why she would say that. It isn't true." Elena shook her head.

"Maybe she went to meet a boy." Katherine suggested.

"My Bonnie had no interest in boys." Liz quickly interjected. Caroline eyebrows raised in shock, had her mother really not noticed.

"She must have been very taken with my son." Carol Lockwood said with a slight smile. "If she had found out the Tyler was engaged to Caroline..."

The girls froze at this new piece of information. _Tyler's eyes could still wander _thought Katherine.

"It must have broken Bonnie's heart." Elena whispered.

"Maybe she _chose_ to die rather than live without Tyler," Katherine added. "She went out seeking the Wolf."

Caroline frowned at them all. Had no one noticed the looks shared between Bonnie and Jeremy? There was no way Bonnie would have killed herself over Tyler.

"Don't worry, you poor child." Carol said, seeing Caroline's frown. "I know you're worried about your sister, but Tyler had always had his eye on you. You are – were always the pretty one."

That didn't make Caroline feel any better.

* * *

Liz was thinking that she would rather the visitors starting to leave, but hearing footsteps approach from outside, she still went out of the door to the porch to see who it was. But when she saw a head of dirty blond curls come into view, she wished she hadn't. She still recognized him after all these years.

"For Bonnie," Klaus said quietly, the flame of a gilded saint's candle flickering inside his hand.

"Leave."

Klaus had anticipated this reaction. He cleared his throat. "I'm paying my respects." He said, still trying to be polite.

"I can guess the reason you're here. I've just lost one daughter. I won't lose another." Liz turned to leave.

"Wait."

"She is all I have left," she said. "And you have nothing to offer her."

Klaus knew she was right, that Caroline deserved better. But he could not give her up.

"I have a trade. The same trade as your husband."

"I know exactly what a woodcutter earns."

Klaus began to protest, but Liz stopped him. "Tyler Lockwood is her only hope for a better life."

Klaus looked into Liz's pain filled eyes, her words hitting him somewhere deep. It sank in: He could not give Caroline a good life.

"If you really love her," Liz said, sensing that she was winning the argument. "You'll leave her alone."

They stared at each other. Klaus broke first, backing away, angry at her dismissal and at himself for understanding.

Liz went inside, leaving him by himself.

Walking away, Klaus realized that filtered behind the agony, there was something about letting go that felt good.

He was someone who has a conviction, who believed in the value of something and held it sacred.

It was just that nothing had ever held such a value for him before.

* * *

**Do you think Caroline will let Klaus give up? What will happen if the men go on a wolf hunt? How will Klaus and Tyler be able to work together...**

**Let me know your thoughts! x**


	10. Chapter 10

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who has reviewed :)**

* * *

Klaus walked through the quiet town, grief hanging in the air. The men ere in the tavern, the women still home mourning.

Stepping through the tavern's back door, he saw some barreled kegs branded with metal. Klaus recalled a long afternoon he once spent in the body of a empty keg with Caroline, to get away

from... Mikael. He wondered whether she remembered.

As he slid along the back wall, Klaus heard Matt say, "I've summoned help."

Everyone looked up. Alaric eyed Matt and waited to hear more.

"From someone closer to God" Matt continued. "Father John."

The room quietened. _Father John_. He was legendary, a priest and a renowned werewolf hunter who had destroyed beasts throughout the kingdom. He was resourceful, brave and cunning and would stop at nothing to eradicate evil.

"Who gave you the authority to do that?" Alaric stepped in front of him.

"God. The highest authority."

"You can plan for the next life," Alaric growled, rolling up his sleeves. "I will plan for this one."

"But the Lord-"

Richard pushed his chair back and stood up.

"This is a village matter," he said decisively. "We will kill the beast ourselves."

"Father John would rob us of our vengeance!" Bill Forbes cried.

"She was practically your child, but-" Matt looked at the older man pleadingly.

"We are hear," Richard persisted. "to right a wrong. Today, we must stand united to say that we will fight not only to avenge our past but also to renew out future. To show the beast that we refuse to live in fear!"

Nearly all the men cheered in agreement.

"Maybe Matt is right," Tyler shouted out. "Maybe we should wait."

From the back of the tavern, Klaus stifled a burst of laughter. Richard turned to Tyler with a glare.

"Maybe, my son," Richard said quietly. "you should find your courage."

Tyler took a deep, labored breath.

"You want to hunt the Wolf?" He narrowed his eyes. "All right, then. Let's hunt it."

Alaric pounded his mug on the table.

"We've let this go on too long. We are here to win back are freedom!" He shouted, rallying on the men. He pulled the silver dagger from his trousers and stabbed it into the table.

The men shook their fists in the air in approval.

"Let's kill that gaddamn Wolf!" he shouted.

It was early evening now and the group realized that if they were going to do it, they had to do it now. They began to file out the door to prepare for the hunt.

Matt shouted after them, "Wait! We shout wait for Father John."

But his hysterical voice was lost in the chorus of voices and clinking mugs.

Bill stopped to refill his cup, and, on the way out, he dumped the whole of it on Matt's head, putting a stop to his protestations.

* * *

The men rushed out the tavern, creating a huge commotion. The women rushed out their houses to see what was going on. _It will be me_, each man thought. _I'll be the one to do it_. They didn't see their wives or their children, and made a point not to notice their troubled faces.

Pulled outside by the noise, Caroline looked around for Klaus. She was angry he hadn't come round to the cottage to see her, but wasn't going to let him leave without saying good-bye.

She found him in the crowed right away, her body always felt in tune with his, her eyes drawn to him.

Seeing her, Klaus sidestepped into a shed and Caroline quickly followed him into the cobwebbed darkness.

"Be careful," she whispered, reaching her fingers to his. "I just lost my sister. I can't lose you, too."

She felt him pull back. Klaus looked at her, aching to touch her again, but trying to be strong.

"I know. But, Caroline, this is wrong."

"What is?"

"We can't do this."

Caroline didn't understand.

"You have to go through with it. You have to marry Tyler." He urged, hating himself even more.

Confused, she shook her head in distaste.

"But I want to be with you." She felt like an idiot saying it, but she couldn't help herself. She meant what she had said – she could not lose him as well.

"Bonnie just died..."

"No. No, how dare you use that!" Klaus hadn't even bothered to pay his respects, and no he was trying to lay claim to Bonnie's death.

"Caroline. Don't make this into something it's not." he said, hardening himself to her. "It was what it was. Nothing more."

Caroline stepped back.

"You don't believe that," she persisted, shaking her head.

Klaus just stood there, unflinching, unable to look at her. But he touched a strand of her blonde curly hair with one finger. He couldn't help himself.

Caroline pushed him away and burst back into the crowd. Feeling numb, she walked towards her cottage.

"Caroline, I've been looking for you,"

It was Tyler Lockwood. She met his eyes reluctantly. Caroline glanced back and saw no sign of Klaus.

"I made something. For you."

Tyler could tell that her mind was elsewhere, but he continued anyway.

"I'm sorry, I know this is the wrong time. What your gong through – I should have waited." He glanced over her shoulder and saw Klaus melting back into the crowd. "But in case I didn't return, I wanted you to have this."

Caroline was set against loving Tyler, against even liking him. His charm could never sway her now.

He reached inside his pocket and retrieved a thin copper bracelet. It was simple and elegant, carefully crafted.

"My father taught me how to make it, to perfect it, to one day give it to the woman I love."

Despite everything, Caroline was touched.

"You will be happy again." He said. "I promise."

Caroline felt oddly consoled.

Richard called out to Tyler, beckoning him to join the men marching out of the village. Tyler squeezed her hand and then squared his shoulders to join the crowd.

Caroline stood silently with the other women, watching the men go. She always hated the division of genders. She itched to do something herself, to kill something with her anger.

Seeing her father starting to head off, she ran up to him.

"I'm going with you." she told him.

"No."

"But she was my _sister_."

"No, Caroline." He slung his axe over his shoulder. "This is not for a woman."

Caroline bristled at her father's words. "You _know_ I'm braver than most of those men. I can-"

Her words were cut off in surprise as she felt his hand grip her arm.

"I will take care of it." he said, his eyes wide. "You can't go. You're all I have left. Understand?"

In that moment she really saw her father, and admired him again. She nodded.

"Good."

He let go of her arm and the strong father presence around him disappeared.

"If I never return, you, my daughter, are the heir to my bedpan." he joked.

She couldn't laugh. She watched him disappeared into the group. He couldn't even swing an axe straight, she thought, how will he confront a ravening beast?

* * *

Having returned to the cottage, Caroline saw that her mother was now asleep, thanks to a dose of Grams tea. Knowing what she had to do, Caroline tossed on an old grey cloak.

She knew where they were headed, where the Wolf made it's lair. She had seen bones on the trail to Mount Grimmoor and in the Black Raven Woods. Following the last of the men through the village, she sidestepped into the shadows to avoid being seen.

Jeremy appeared, bearing a pitchfork and a kitchen knife.

"I'm coming." He shouted out.

"No beasts allowed," one of the men called out. The group laughed, pushing Jeremy. Caroline wished she could go to him, and was relieved when Elena rushed out to him. Jeremy pushed her away and went in his own direction.

She saw Bill catch up with Richard at the front of the crowd. He looked angry and imposing, ready for the fight.

"Thank you for standing up for Bonnie," Bill said.

"We'll be family soon." Richard nodded. "You would have done the same."

Caroline had never seen them ever get along. Who would think that the richest man in town and the family drunk could find a common ground. She supposed that even a drunk might have something a rich man wanted. She froze as realization sank in – _I am only a thing to be traded._

Looking away she noticed Klaus and Tyler walking sullenly side by side, neither willing to fall behind the other. They were wary of each other, refusing to make eye contact.

Moving quickly to keep up, Caroline glanced up at the crimson moon, shining a warning in the night sky.

She could not bear to lose anyone else tonight.

* * *

**What did you think? (Don't worry though - Klaroline is endgame - promise!)**

**So all the men have gone out into the woods and I can tell you now - not everyone will return...**

**Reviews are always appreciated! Are there anymore guesses of who the wolf is? (not going to say yes or no, but I am enjoying adding real and fake leads!)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed :)**

* * *

Seeing movement outside, Grams knew the men were coming. She stepped out onto the porch to wait. They soon arrived and looked up to her. Grams climbed down the steps, holding a small, yet bright, candle.

She made her way to Bill.

"I heard about my Bonnie." She didn't explain how. "Promise that you will be careful."

"Don't worry. The Wolf has no interest in me – I'm all gristle." They both smiled slightly.

Grams turned, and ascended back up the stairs. She stood vigilant, watching the group move off, one at a time. Turning her head slightly, she saw a dark figure stalking up to her.

Shuddering, the figure flung back the hood of his cloak and-

It was Caroline.

Grams shook her head, covering up her previous fear with laughter. "Darling, what are you doing?"

Caroline frowned. "Why shouldn't I go with them? She was my sister."

Grams gave a sad smile and took her in her arms. "You're frozen already – I don't think you'll make it."

"Well, no, I suppose not." Caroline gave up, she was still tired and her body felt heavy.

Though she did not say it, Caroline was delighted that Grams had not cast her off because of Bonnie. She had always admired this place, a cottage out in the woods, apart from the village. Caroline loved Grams' way of life, even if it was the topic of ridicule for the villagers. Even if the price Grams paid was that some blamed her for the Wolf's presence in the village.

At some point whist Caroline was thinking, Grams had led her into the small cottage and onto an old, but comfy chair.

"You'll need your sleep." Grams handed Caroline a steaming cup of her sage brew.

Ignoring her tea, Caroline turned her head, seeing the light from the men's torches start to fade into the distance. Feeling her stomach coil, Caroline snapped her head away.

_Who will come back? Will any of them? _A gush of wind made her jump. Nothing felt right any more. Bonnie was gone and nothing was the same. Even nature didn't seem right any more, as if it could feel the absence.

"I was a sister. I should have been with her," Caroline blurted out, sinking further into the couch, hoping that it could swallow her up and take her away.

"You can't blame yourself." Grams whispered, added some unfamiliar herbs to the tea. "Of course, as my own grandmother used to say, 'All sorrows are-"

"-less with bread'" Caroline finished the line she had been hearing for as long as she could remember.

Grams tried to smile weakly; Caroline didn't bother.

"Are you still cold?"

Caroline nodded, going through the motions.

Wordlessly Grams left the room, soon returning, coming up behind Caroline and draping something over her shoulders.

"How's this?"

Caroline looked down. It was a beautiful, blood red cloak.

"Grams..." Caroline didn't know what to say, she had never seen anything like it before.

"I made it for your wedding."

Caroline looked down at the bracelet.

"The wedding doesn't feel like mine. It is like I am being sold." Klaus words played over in her mind, a harsh grip on her heart.

"There's someone else, isn't there." It wasn't a question.

"There was someone..." Caroline whispered, mainly to herself. "But maybe there isn't now."

Grams nodded, as if she could immediately understand.

"I just can't believe he'd give me up so easily."

"Maybe there is something more to the story." Grams said knowingly. Caroline shook her head in dismissal.

"Perhaps. I hate to think of it in the wake of death."

There was a silence which screamed at them both.

"How I wish you could follow your heart." The older woman said finally.

"There is little chance of that." Caroline's face darkened. "All my mother cares about is money, and my father's too drunk to notice half of anything."

Despite the circumstance, Grams let out a deep chuckle.

"You, Caroline, were never one to mince words."

The silence soaked over them once more.

"When I was young," Grams began, soothing the tension. "the Wolf would attack entire families. Lure them out into the wild."

"How?" Caroline questioned, sitting up, thoughts on the scraps in Bonnie's hand.

"No one knows."

"But the killings stopped when you started sacrificing animals for it," Caroline said, knowing that part of the story. She reached out and picked up the hot cup of tea.

"Yes, but it was after a long period of brutality. It was then that we started the bells – those four tolls. Every month." She looked down. "I thought those days were over."

There was a time when Caroline hadn't truly understood the significance of those church bells. She did now.

Caroline started to drift asleep, but snapped up at every noise. Grams moved forward.

"Drink, darling."

"Bonnie is dead." Caroline said, trying to accept it.

"I know, dear. Drink a bit more."

Caroline felt her eyelids becoming heavy, she couldn't keep her head up.

"The Wolf killed Bonnie..."

She did not finish her thought, though, because sleep had taken her like death.

* * *

**Bit of a short chapter, but I promise will add a chapter with the men and their hunt tomorrow!**

**Thanks for reading :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson. **

* * *

Inside the mountain, the boasting that had gone on in the tavern had given way to an uneasy silence.

"This way, men," Alaric whispered as they reached a fork, nodding towards a dark tunnel. Even their torches made little difference to the never ending darkness.

"Not safe," muttered one of the men. "We can't see what's beyond the bend."

"We'll take the other fork," stated Klaus, gesturing to his half of the group.

Tyler looked to his father. They did not want to admit it but Klaus was right. The full group of men would be too many to maneuver in the dark cave. Tyler wished he'd spoken up first.

"Yes," he said, trying to sound involved in the decision. "Some of us ought to split off."

"As you see fit," Alaric scoffed, walking on alone as the other men chose their sides. A few were glad to follow, but Klaus, Tyler, Richard and those who wanted to lead rather than be led, were awkwardly left on their own. At least this way, Tyler would be able to keep a close watch on Klaus.

Tyler hoped his father would leave it up to him, but Richard quickly decided he would assume control himself. The woodcutters had stayed behind; mindlessly following Klaus. Bill, lagging behind, reluctantly decided to follow Alaric's group and jogged into the cave to catch up.

Now on their own, Richard, Tyler, Klaus and the woodcutters crept forward, trying to keep their footsteps light.

Tyler sidled up next to Klaus, startling him.

"It could get dangerous down here." He lit a match. "You'd better watch yourself."

"Watch _yourself_," Klaus replied, motioning to the flame that had burnt down to the end of the match. The threat his look held was evident even in the pitch dark.

"Right." Tyler said, shaking his hand when the fire nicked him.

Before an argument could really escalate, the group reached another fork.

"We need to search every corner." Klaus made a show of directing the woodcutters to separate themselves again. "We'll take the steep way."

"No," Tyler cut in, eager to disagree with Klaus. "We should stay together now."

"Maybe you should go home and wait Father John." Klaus called over his shoulder, already on his way.

The woodcutters paused. Did they really want to trust their lives with prideful young men? Hesitantly, they followed Klaus' instructions. Watching them go, Tyler felt his father's eyes on him. _Why had I not been the one to suggest it?_

* * *

Klaus smirked smugly to himself, dimples showing, pleased that he had won. His group kept close behind him, watching the dark intently for any signs of movement.

Creeping through the narrow pathway, the woodcutters reeked of fear, waiting for the Wolf to spring upon them. Every little movement caused by the wind and the trees startled them, causing some of the men to drop their weapons.

The men moved mindlessly, but, luckily, Klaus thought for them. _Walk_, he thought, _Wait for the air to change, for the moment of stillness before the movement._

The air changes suddenly, the gust blowing out the lights, causing the men to lose their senses in the chaos of terror.

* * *

Tyler, far away, was knocked backwards by the wind, grit blowing into his eyes.

All he heard was shouts. Screams. Running feet.

His torch blew out.

* * *

Alaric saw it first. A smudge in the dark. The Wolf's bloody print stamped into the dirt. He bent down to the ground when he heard a faraway cry.

A man had been attacked.

Alaric was ready for it, could tell immediately where it had come from.

"Run!" he shouted.

Most of the men followed, some scattered away from the cry, heading for the mouth of the cave. Their screams echoed through the mountain.

_Down the tunnel. Keep moving,_ Alaric instructed himself. _There must be another way out. Don't trip on the rocks._

His breath was loud, his feet louder. Seeing a slit of light, he raced towards it. He could see a opening – salvation.

Alaric stumbled out, the men wise enough to follow him trickled out after. The red moon in the sky highlighted towering shapes.

Moving closer, Alaric saw that they were not rocks as he was expecting.

They were bones. Human bones. Piled as high as ten feet.

Taking a step back in shock, Alaric looked up. Where was the Wolf? The empty eyes of skulls stared down at him, mouths pulled into grins, and he had to look away.

Scanning the room he saw something else.

Richards dead, empty body lay cold and lifeless, ripped up gruesomely by the Wolf.

Anger spurred him on, more determined than ever to destroy the beast. He _would_ find it. He _would_ kill it.

Caught up in the thought of his soon-to-be victory and the glory that would follow, Alaric heard a noise behind him.

A low snarl.

He spun around and found himself face-to-face with a mouthful of sharp fangs, huge and gleaming.

Alaric pulled his own dagger in front of himself, unable to back down. It's eyes met his. Time stood still. Then the monster sprang, arcing towards its next victim.

* * *

**Dun dun dun... **

**Thoughts? :)**


	13. Chapter 13

**I just want to say that I am so soooo sorry for how late this update is! I have this thing called tendonitis in my wrist which made gestures like typing into a computer a very painful thing to do. But I feeling better now and have got my longest chapter so far! Again - sorry for the wait!**

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

_Bang!_

Caroline jerked awake from a nightmare, curled up in the cold room. Looking out the window she saw that morning light was pushing it's way through.

Caroline froze, realising that she wasn't in her own bed, trying to remember what had happened the night before. She was at Grams house. The noise had come from Grams room.

"Grams?" she called.

Caroline stepped up and made her way through the house.

"Grams...?"

She was still in bed, facing away from Caroline, the covers pulled tightly around her body. Objects were lying across the floor. A window had been left open to the wind.

_Or had someone come in?_

Caroline moved to close it. Turning around she couldn't help but feel that something was off. Walking closer the the tightly wrapped bed, a wave of uneasiness washed over her. The figure stirred, then began to rise. Caroline shifted back, terrified and ready to run...

But it was only Grams, the old woman offering a smile as she blinked awake.

* * *

After forcing down a cold breakfast, Caroline hurried home through the woods in her new read cloak.

"Mother?" she asked as she stepped into the cottage.

Liz looked up from her seat by the unlit fireplace. Desolate, grief-stricken.

Caroline's heart snagged, she should have waited here with her.

"Is father..." she couldn't finish the sentence.

"He's fine." Liz said, looking down at her hands. "He and the men have returned to the tavern."

Caroline nodded, unable to ask about Klaus.

"You look beautiful," Liz said, finally noticing the red cloak. Her eyes travelled over her, stopping at her wrist. She reached out and grabbed Caroline's arm, inspecting it. "Caroline, what is this?"

"It's nothing. A present from Tyler." Caroline tried to hide it, embarrassed to even be wearing it. But Liz held on a studied it for a long time.

"Caroline," Liz spoke again after a moment. "Listen to me. Wear this bracelet. Don't take it off. You're a promised woman now."

Caroline winced internally at the words, but nodded uneasily, wanting to keep her mother happy. Pulling away, Caroline moved off to the safety of her own space.

She couldn't help but feel more powerful in her red cloak, she decided that shouldn't always have to make other happy. Not her mother or Klaus...

With that thought in mind she moved silently past her mother, not wanting to be seen, and headed back to the tavern.

* * *

The men who had returned had made their way to the pub. Caroline had to push her way through the clump of men before finding a less crowded spot. Caroline sat by herself, apart from the crowd, and leaned forward to listen.

Feeling safe in her red cloak she scanned through the crowd, knowing exactly what – or who – she was looking for. First she saw her dad, who looked safe but not sober.

Then she saw Klaus, beautiful in his heroic return, even though he didn't lift his head. Relief washed over her, and then anger. She hated that she cared so much, that she could love someone who could not love her back...

Then she registered that Tyler wasn't there.

Alaric was sat at the head of a long table, surrounded by admirers, the Wolfs head skewered on a pike besides him. Alaric was relaying the whole story, men around him looking envious whist the women near gushed.

Caroline glared as she heard one woman thanking him for "Avenging that poor girls death." when that was nothing to do with it.

But Caroline couldn't stop herself from listen in and as the story came to an end she finally fully realized what had just been said. Richard Lockwood had died in the glory. Caroline closed her eyes. She now understood why Tyler was missing.

She looked at Klaus again, but he was still looking at the floor.

Everyone had come to the tavern because no one wanted to go home. People were celebrating. Someone was gutting the Wolf out in front of the tavern.

The sun rose and for most of the villagers the death and sacrifices had been forgotten. They wanted to celebrate their new found freedom.

They were glad to know that money did not mean exemption, the richest man in town having been one of those to go. They had been spared, and maybe it was because they had deserved it.

It seemed a small price to pay, those deaths.

_But the price was not small_, Caroline thought.

Jeremy walked past, looking through the tavern window in disgust. Caroline met his eyes and understood why. Behind him something rushed past.

Richard was wheeled by, his dead body lying atop the undertakers cart.

Only his head was exposed, eyes closed in eternal sleep. Blood had seeped out of his body and had become blotches on the cloth.

Carol Lockwood trailed behind, wailing her grief. She, too, looked through the window and saw Caroline. They held each others gaze until she passed the frame.

Inside the tavern the men had noticed what was happening and had proceeded to bring their hats to their chests in a sign of respect for the body.

"To Richard." Bill raised his glass. "For his sacrifice."

"To Richard!" The rest of the men mimicked the gesture.

Looking up first to see if Klaus would notice, Caroline slipped out of the tavern. Tyler had offered his condolences, and now she would, too. She didn't know what she would say, but she knew where he would be.

* * *

She stepped into the blacksmiths shop. The door had been left open carelessly, leading into the hot cavern. For a long while, Tyler, his body half-bare as he threw sparks, did not realize she was there. Caroline couldn't help but be reminded of Klaus' bare chest from the day before, and how warm and firm it had been under her touch.

Caroline felt even more trapped than ever before, no matter how much she loathed the betrothal, she couldn't run away now and abandon Tyler to his grief. She felt guilty for even thinking of it.

"Tyler..." she forced herself to speak. "your father was a brave man."

Tyler continued attacking the mental in front of him. She wasn't sure he had heard her when he suddenly stopped.

"I was close enough to smell it." he seethed, refusing to turn around. "But I was afraid. I hid from it."

_Clang!_

"I should have done something."

_Clang!_

"I should have saved him."

Caroline realized he was destroying all his fathers half finished projects.

"I've lost someone, too, Tyler – I know how it is. Please come away from the fire."

_Clang!_

"Tyler, please."

Tyler kept taking his fury out on the metal. Finally he turned, gesturing violently towards the door, a fire in his eyes.

"Caroline. Leave." he snarled. "I don't want you to see me like this"

Knowing what it was like to want to be alone, she left, the image of Tyler's fury imprinted in her mind.

* * *

Exiting the shop, Caroline was surprised to see her mother staring at the upper level of the shop, where Richard's body had been taken.

Instinctively, Caroline moved to her mothers side and entwined their hands. Looking down something on Liz's wrist glint in the light.

A beautiful hammered bracelet...

Identical to the one Tyler had made for Caroline.

Confused, Caroline felt for hers which was still intact on her wrist. She looked back at her mother. Liz had seen the whole movement and stood there silently, unable to say anything. It was then Caroline understood.

"You told me you loved else before you were married."

Liz didn't answer, her silence saying more than she could.

"Tell me who it was."

Liz looked away and gulped.

"I think you already know."

"Tell me. I want to hear you say it." Caroline couldn't help it.

Liz looked tearful, chewing on her lip.

"I'm the child," Caroline spat out. "You're supposed to be my mother. The least you could do was say it."

"The man I loved was Richard Lockwood."

Hearing it said out loud made Caroline shiver but Liz wasn't done.

"I loved him practically all my life, and he loved me. But I wasn't good enough for his family. We... we had a child at one point."

"What?!" Caroline interrupted. "I... me... Tyler?" She couldn't form a full sentece.

Liz looked up at her again in horror.

"Of course not! No!" She almost shouted, before lowering her voice again. "No one now. She died as a baby. Illness. Probably for the best I suppose." But Caroline could hear the heartbreak in her mothers voice. Silently she pulled forward and the two women hugged, clinging on to each other.

Eventually they pulled away and Caroline reflected on her new knowledge.

"Does father know." Caroline asked, knowing that she probably didn't want the answer, but asking anyway.

"No." Liz said, looking imploringly at her daughter. "Promise me you wont tell him."

Liz calmed down when she Caroline's face. She knew the lengths her daughter would go in order to protect her father.

"But know this," she continued, becoming serious. "It wasn't that I couldn't love your father. It was just that I already loved Richard."

Caroline was overtaken by a sense of sadness for her mother. She felt like her mother had made a bad choice by marring her father. This thought made Caroline more determined than ever to escape the planned out life that was set and to be with Klaus. Surely her mother would understand that it could be worth following your heart if this is an alternative.

Before Caroline could respond to her mother, a dark, sinister yet elegant carriage rushed past.

Matt ran down the street after it shouting.

"He has arrived!"

* * *

**I have really missed writing this story! Reviews are always loved ;) Thank you for putting up with me! **


	14. Chapter 14

**Thank you again to everyone who is supporting the story :) **

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

"Easy there," The coachman growled at the horses as the carriage pulled to a stop.

Caroline heard hooves pounding up behind the carriage as a dozen fearsome soldiers rode on powerful stallions, weapons gleaming in the afternoon sun. A band of men behind them wheeled up a huge iron elephant and wagons filled with weapons and books. The strange elephant looked on with menacing eyes. Caroline saw the other villagers wondering about it's use, not seeing any fitting purpose. Noticing a hinged door in it's iron belly and shuddered.

Caroline saw her friends, but before she could cross to them, everything had come to a halt in the town square. Everyone watched on, not sure what to expect now. Mystic Falls was a town used to disappointment.

Klaus stood far from Caroline. They did not look at each other. It was a good thing there was so much else to see.

She realized though, that it might not be worth the risk. Hearing of her mother's upset, of the trauma of love, Caroline didn't want to hurt like that. She would forget Klaus and she would forget Tyler. She would live out in the woods like Grams, alone and happy. Enough with "love".

But even while thinking this, deep down Caroline knew a part of her would always be longing for Klaus, as if they fit together and without him she couldn't be whole. It was a horrible way to feel about someone.

One of the soldiers got of his horse and made his way to the carriage door, causing the cautious villagers to scatter back.

"Presenting his Eminence..." the soldiers cried out. "Father John."

The onlookers held their breaths, waiting for the doors to open. When it did the towns people were startled to see a small girl in the front facing seat, grief written so plainly on her face.

Father John was facing in, his back to the crowd.

"Please don't cry." He bent over her. "See all these children? See how scared they are?" He motioned to those gathered in the square and the little girl peered out. "They are afraid because there is something evil here, a Wolf. And someone has to stop it."

"Is it the beast that killed mother?" The girl asked. John looked out, assessing the crowd. The gathered people gasped when they saw him. He looked impeccable in shining armour. He looked exactly as a Wolf slayer should.

"It may very well be," John replied gravely.

The young girl shuddered and pushed forward for a hug. John embraced her before gently pushed her back to a safe guardian.

"Be good, now," he said, shutting the door. They would be safe in there. Caroline found that she was perversely jealous of the little girl, safe behind their iron bars.

Father John watched the coach roll out of the square, then out of the village altogether, whisking the girl off to a safer place. The villagers envied them, wishing they, too, could run off. Father John took a moment to steel himself for work, before turning to the crowd who could sense the commanding presence that he gave off. The crowd knew from his face that he had seen a world they never would.

Realizing that no one else would, Matt stepped forward to speak for Mystic Falls.

"This is indeed an honour, Your Eminence." He bowed his head to the older man.

John nodded slightly, uninterested. His motions were tight and complete.

"Fortunately, we were travelling through this region already and were able to get here quickly. I understand that you have lost a village girl." He paced in front of the crowd. "Who in attendance is the girl's family?"

Liz didn't move, and Caroline didn't see her father – who was probably still inside the tavern. Caroline shuffled, glancing at Klaus, who offered nothing from far across the crowd, Caroline slowly raised her hand.

John strode over to her and lowered her hand to rest in his.

"Do not worry," He said theatrically, bowing his head. "Enough horrors have been witnessed, enough suffering endured. We will find the beast that killed the girl. I am sorry for you loss."

He moved back to continue addressing the crowd, expression hardening.

Caroline saw Alaric move forward, unable to contain himself any longer.

"You and your men are late." He set a hand on Father John's shoulder. "But you have arrived in time to take part in our festival." Alaric motioned to the furry head on the pike, its eyes glazed over, filmy and white.

"As you can see, the Wolf had been dealt with."

Father John looked down at Alaric's hand and swiftly stepped back, out of reach.

"That is no werewolf," Father John muttered cryptically, shaking his head.

"Not any more, it isn't," Alaric said, meeting with approval from the crowd. "Maybe it doesn't look like a _were_wolf now, but you didn't see it when it was alive."

Mystic Fall men nodded in affirmation.

"You're not listening," Father John said quietly, in a way that made everyone listen. "That is not the head of a werewolf."

There was a frozen second whilst everyone tried to process the weight of what he had told them.

"No disrespect, Father, but we've lived with this beast for two generations. Every full moon it takes our sacrifice." Alaric grinned broadly. "I think we know what we're dealing with."

"No disrespect," Father John countered, unwavering, "but you have _no idea _what you're dealing with."

Caroline looked on in interest, it was not often that someone would question Alaric.

"I see your denial. I was once the same way," Father John admitted. "Let me tell you a story – my first encounter with a werewolf."

Caroline felt the crowd hold their breath.

"My wife's name was Isobel. She gave me a beautiful daughter, as you have seen. We were a happy family, living in a village much like this one. And like Mystic Falls, ours was also plagued by a werewolf."

John walked closer to his audience, his boots heavy against the floor.

"It was six autumns ago. The night was still, almost dead. The full moon hung overhead. My friends and I left the tavern late at night after some... revelry. We decided to hunt the Wolf. We never thought that we would actually find it. But we did. And it proved to be fatal," he said with an exaggerated candour.

He moved even closer to the crowd, causing many people to take an involuntary step backwards.

"I came face-to-face with the beast. It breathed – I could feel it. It blinked – I could hear it. But the Wolf let me go, turning instead to my friend, making me watch as he was ripped in half. Quickly. But not so fast that I didn't hear his spine snap."

Caroline felt sick, thinking of Bonnie, and what she might of heard if she had been there.

"I screamed, and then it was on me. All I saw were yellow teeth. I hacked at it with my axe, and in a moment it was gone. I had cut off one of it's front paws. Thinking it would make a good souvenir, I took it home."

Father John took a deep breath, steadying himself, before continuing with the story.

"I arrived home, drunk and proud. When I entered the front hall, I followed a trail of blood to a black form on our kitchen table." John paused for full effect. "As I got closer, I realized with horror that it was my wife. A bloody rag was tied around her left wrist. Her hand was severed. And when I opened my sack, _this_ was in it's place." He paused again, building the suspense to a peak.

One of Father John's soldiers hand stepped forward with a box. He moved up to Alaric and opened the box slowly. The other villagers crowded in closer to look.

Inside was a woman's mummified hand, wedding band glinting, lying atop a bed of petals. A gasp moved through the crowd.

"Roses," John cut in, "were Isobel's favourite."

He looked away, unable to face the eager villagers.

"I told my girl that the werewolf had killed their mother. But that was a lie." His voice was ghostly still. "_I_ killed her." His words hung in the air. "Because she _was_ the Wolf. Do any of you know what it's like to kill the person you love most."

He turned back to see a sea of blank faces.

"You may soon. When the werewolf dies," John began, "it returns to it's human form."

He glanced at the Wolf head in disgust.

"That is just a common gray wolf. Your _were_wolf is still alive." The first act was over. "Come now. To the tavern."

* * *

The tavern was full to the brim with people. John inspected a silver, gem-encrusted sword in his hands with a smile on his face.

"What is that?" Matt asked, intrigued.

"A silver sword, coated in wolfsbane." John smirked, proud of his weapon.

Matt's eyes lit up.

"May I touch it?" He asked.

Father John gave him a reproachful look.

Matt stepped back, chastened.

"This is a very dangerous time," John told the people of Mystic Falls. Jeremy lay on his stomach in the rafters, overlooking the scene. Caroline smiled up at him briefly, wishing she had though to climb up there, so she could have some space to actually move.

"Of course, you know what the blood moon means."

Didn't they? Everyone looked around for someone else to speak.

"I see you have no idea what it means."

The villagers looked down embarrassed.

"During the blood moon has a traditional meaning. It is a time when the Wolf's pass on and spread the curse."

Everyone stopped moving in horror of what had been said.

"There are many different arguments about how this is done. Most commonly it is believed that one bite can pass on the curse to anyone, but others believe that the curse resides in a family, triggered by death. During the week of the blood moon, a werewolf may try to pass on the curse. Even in daytime -"

"Pardon me, but you are wrong." Alaric looked pleased. "Sunlight makes a werewolf human -"

"No, it is you who is wrong," John said, meeting the glares of the men who'd risked their lives in the caves.

Alaric shifted his stance.

"A werewolf is never truly _human_ no matter how it appears. During the blood moon, your very _souls_ may be in danger."

The room chilled.

"For how long, exactly?"

"Four days."

_Two nights are left, _Caroline thought. _Tomorrow will be the final day._

"As I've said," Alaric interjected. "none of this matters. We're safe now. The Wolf is dead. I killed it myself in it's own lair."

John looked at him like he was a child.

"You have been deceived by the beast, right from the start. Most likely, it lured a hungry wolf to the cave and trapped it there for you to find. It fooled you into thinking you knew where it lived, so that you wouldn't think to look in the most obvious place."

He paused, letting them understand their own folly.

"The Wolf lives right here. In this village." He looked at the villagers. "Among you. It is _one of you._"

Everyone looked around, suspicious of each other, shuffling uncomfortably.

"The real killer could be your neighbour. Your best friend. Even your wife."

Caroline saw men thinking back to the cave. Who had been missing? It was impossible to know in the dark. Her own eyes crossed Carol's, Klaus', her parent's. She began to replay her friends' stories of that had happened at the camp out. How did they lose sight of Bonnie? Had one of them held her back and dragged her into the dark... or had someone written a note to lure her out?

Her suspicious gaze settled on the people she had known her whole life. And they were staring back at her.

"Barricade the village," Father John commanded. "Post men at every gate along the town wall. No one leaves until the Wolf is dead."

"The Wolf is dead!" Alaric growled. "Tonight we _celebrate_."

John glared at him, a fire in his eyes.

"Go ahead and celebrate, we'll see who's right."

He turned and walked out of the tavern.

Caroline watched him leave and bump into Stefan and Damon, promptly starting an argument.

Turning back she saw the suspicious gaze of many of the villagers turned of both her and Klaus. Unable to cope, Caroline pushed past through the crowd and left the tavern, looking back to see Klaus looking at her, worry in his eyes.

Little did they know that the night was going to get deadly.

* * *

**Penny for your thoughts? ;)**


	15. Chapter 15

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

_What remains of Bonnie will soon be no more,_ Caroline thought as she walked down the path to the river. It was late afternoon and Bill, Liz and Caroline were carrying a raft that held Bonnie's body.

As they reached the shore they saw that what was left of the Lockwood family had already arrived, standing over Richard's body, lying on it's own raft. Carol stood up, not looking at the body, as a grief-stricken Tyler stood behind her.

They both nodded when Caroline and her family approached. Tyler raised his eyes at Caroline – a silent apology for how he had acted last time they met. They set Bonnie's raft next to Richard's, and Caroline looked at her mother who was lost in double sorrow.

Bill bent down and started preparing two torches, not looking at anyone else.

Like all children, Caroline found her parents sadness unbearable, and took a few steps back to give them space.

Bill looked up; the torches were ready.

Tyler stepped down the uneven bank to collect one torch. Before he could think about it too long, he placed it onto Richard's raft and pushed the floating coffin into the river, watching the flames engulf his father. The water would eventually stop the flames, but only after the fire had finished what it had been called upon to do.

Tyler moved back to his mother, standing by her side, both of them entranced by the flames. Carol closed her eyes and Caroline could see the tears threatening to spill.

Through the haze of grief, the five mourners heard the sound of feet scuffing through pebbles. It was Jeremy, who'd come to pay his final respects to Bonnie. Catching Caroline's eye, he moved down the bank. He was coping as best as he could. Jeremy had believed in many things, yet before that day, he had not believed in evil. It had taken seeing his sweet Bonnie lying dead in the wheat field to convince him.

_Evil was everywhere. _

Carol sniffed and turned away from the intruder, but Caroline offered him a watery smile. She didn't mind.

Bill, seeing Richard's raft was well into the river, stepped forward himself. Caroline shook her head. One more moment.

Caroline took one last look. She looked and tried to say good-bye.

But good-bye was not easy.

Liz moves to the raft, trembling with tears. She would always consider Bonnie as _her_ daughter, even if it wasn't technically true.

Looking first for permission, Bill touched the torch to the edge of the raft. Once it had caught, he pushed it out into the river, a final gesture.

Liz hovered behind him, sharing the grief between them.

Caroline felt a touch, and fell instinctively into Tyler's chest, as if her own body was betraying her. She felt an arm around her, and realized that she was crying. For a long moment she wasn't sure if she was actually in control of her own body. When she looked up Carol had disappeared.

As the flames settled into the river, Caroline moved away from Tyler's body. Not feeling like she should intrude on her mother and father, she knew the people she wanted to be with her wouldn't. She spared one more glance at the empty river. Jeremy had already left, nothing was here for him any more.

Bonnie was gone – there was no doubt about that now.

Caroline turned and walked home by herself, leaving Tyler and her parents behind, following the dark tree line along the village wall. Father John's soldiers on patrol watch as she walked past, their weapons slung across their bodies, their eyes following her as she moved.

The new reinforced barricade was frightening; it meant that now the world was just the village against the Wolf. But it frightened Caroline for a reason that she was afraid to admit, even to herself.

The barricade meant she would be trapped inside.

Through the dark Caroline heard a deafening noise which ripped her from her thoughts. Something jumped out of the bushes at her, surreal and terrifying.

It was a wolf with a man's face.

* * *

**Sorry for the shortness but **

**I PROMISE THERE WILL BE LOTS OF KLAROLINE IN THE VERY NEXT CHAPTER :D **

**Reviews are always appreciated xx **


	16. Chapter 16

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Ready for some Klaroline :D**

* * *

The man in the wolf costume jangled Caroline's nerves, already raw. She'd almost forgotten that Alaric's "celebration" was still happening. Wandering into the town square, Caroline felt unnerved by everything that was happening around her.

A towering effigy of the Wolf had been built from a pyramid of sharpened sticks and debris. It was burning at the far end of the square, coughing out sparks from its blackening mouth. The blood moon hung above it, making it stand out, fearsome.

A small stage had been crafted for 'musicians' of the village who had gotten their hands on instruments and insisted on playing.

Despite all the delicious-looking food standing on tables, wafts of rotten garbage and sweat still filled the square. Caroline felt her stomach turn.

Everyone seemed to be celebrating harder in an effort to convince themselves that they should be celebrating at all. They danced in a frenzy; frantic and wild.

Surrounded by everyone she knew, Caroline felt completely alone.

Edging round, Caroline saw her parents had arrived. Liz kept her eyes down and melted into the crowd whilst Bill was already hanging carelessly off a branch, blowing hard and fast into an ox horn.

"Hey! Hey! Everybody!"

Caroline and nearby people turned to face the shrill voice. Kelly Donovan had grabbed a rusty overturned bucket to boost her height and was clamouring to get atop, wailing her arms above her head. "Quiet, all!" The would-be podium gave was and Tyler caught and stabilized the woman before she fell.

Half the villagers didn't spare a glance, either not hearing or not bothering to listen. Kelly raised a pewter mug. "To Alaric!" Then, realizing she had commanded everyone's attention, she added, "For, uh, his bravery and his courage and his fearlessness."

Caroline wondered if she was going to say any more. Kelly herself seemed unsure, having not known what she was going to say in the first place.

"And for... killing that Wolf as dead as door nails. Like the nails made by little Tyler."

Tyler smiled, trying to steady his face into politeness.

"Though he's not so little any more." She winked at him, wagging her hips for emphasis. Caroline gave Matt a sympathetic glance.

* * *

Caroline hung back from the crowd until Elena finally approached her, the hem of her skirt clutched in each fist as she danced.

"I'm so glad you came!" she called over the noise, letting her long brown hair swish from side to side. Caroline hoped this meant she was forgiven for being betrothed to Tyler. She decided to confide her concern to her to her friend.

"Elena, the Wolf's not gone, is it?" Caroline asked, her voice sounding hollow.

Elena stopped dancing and let her skirt fall.

"Why would you say something like that?" she frowned. "You heard Alaric."

"But Father John-"

"The men know what their doing. Now, come on!"

Elena made her way back into the crowd and Caroline was about to follow until she spotted Tyler Lockwood quickly making his was her along the edge of the square.

"Tyler." She greeted him, feeling the bond of grief.

"This all seems so wrong. They're barely in their graves." Tyler said.

Surveying the raucous mob, Caroline was horrifies to see Katherine against Klaus, seductively grinding her hips. He held her close to him, clutching her to his chest as they rolled their shoulders against each other in unison.

"No," Caroline said darkly. "Let the celebrate."

"Now hardly seems the time." He shook his head.

Suddenly, feeling the depth of her own hurt, she wanted to hurt him.

"You heard Alaric. The Wolf is dead. Let us all get back to our lives!" She instantly hated herself. He had voiced exactly what she'd felt, and she'd him for it.

She turned to apologise, but he'd already disappeared.

Moving in the direction Elena had gone, she saw a man in a ratty wolf costume standing over a drunk looking Bill, beating him with his flat tail and blowing in his face.

"I'll huff and I'll puff and-"

"Get off him!" Caroline shouted.

When he didn't, Caroline ran over, grabbed a firewood log, and fiercely whacked him with it. A few women surrounding quietened their taunting and stepped back, impressed.

"I said get _off_!" she shouted, too loud over the music. The man scampered back into the howling crowd.

"Blow my eardrum out, why don't you?" Bill laughed from the ground, face in the mud, apparently unaware what had happened to him. Bill had clearly seen the night as an occasion to drink as much as he could.

"I'm serious." Usually Caroline would put up with his merrymaking. But tonight she couldn't do it. Caroline saw, with shame, that he was lying in a pool of his own vomit.

"Father..."

"I'm getting up, I'm getting up."

He managed to sit up, but couldn't go any further.

"I think I chipped off a bit of tooth," Bill noted, rubbing his cheek.

Caroline helped him to his feet, trying to support his unbalanced weight. She let him lean on her as she dragged him away from the crowd and pointed him toward home.

He looked down at his shirt, at the vomit.

"Just flick this off and I'll be fit to see the king," he said, attempting a flick as they passed a group of teenagers.

"Did the bearded lady faint?" One of them called out in a lilting voice.

"Damsel in distress!" sang another.

Caroline's jaw clenched, feeling the weight of her father.

"Don't worry about them, Caroline," Bill muttered.

As he lurched along beside her, Caroline felt ashamed for feeling ashamed of it. She knew he was aware of it and that it hurt him.

"You're my good girl," he choked out in his fragile, drunken state. He tried to pat her with his free arm but missed. He looked around, wondering where home was, finding it. He jerked free of her.

"...gwanback havfun," he commanded her. It was all the fatherly wisdom he could muster. And without so much as a glance more in her direction, he floundered onward.

* * *

Making her way back to the square, Caroline was soon spotted again by Elena, who ran over.

"I wish I could feel as free as Katherine does." Elena shouted over the music, maintaining her perfect posture even as she danced.

Already knowing to what she was referring, Caroline turned uneasily to face Klaus and Katherine. She reached around and wrapping her hands around his neck. He held his hands to her face and reached into her dark hair as Caroline felt swamped with betrayal. Noticing Caroline was watching was only fuel for Katherine to grind harder. Klaus kept his head down.

Caroline wished they would die. She couldn't decide which one she hated more, Klaus or Katherine. Her vision blurred as she watched him.

"Are you all right?" Elena asked.

"Yes."

"I wonder if we should stop her. She's ruining whatever's left of her reputation dancing with _him._" Elena pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"No," Caroline said darkly. "Let her do what she wants."

Men walked past with bottles of ale and Caroline reached out and took a bottle for herself, leaning back to let the bottle's contents burn down her throat. Looking up, Caroline felt like she was swimming through the air.

She grabbed Elena and pulled her into a wild dance, the two girls were lit up by ecstatic flames.

They leaned forward, legs wide, dipping towards each other, stomping forwards and back so that they were eye to eye, chest to chest. They stopped thinking about what they were doing and gave into the music and beats.

Meanwhile, Klaus hovered over Katherine, his body resting on hers. Though Caroline and Klaus were dancing differently, their bodies moving in different ways, they were both doing the same dance. It was a jealously dance.

Catching glances through the whirring bodies of a couple who danced between them, Caroline watched Klaus watching her, both pretending not to. The energy flowed between them, carried by the lines of vision that made sure never to meet.

_Slam!_

Without Caroline realizing it, Tyler had come stumbling towards her, ale spilling sloppily out of his cup, clearly the latest of a sting of drinks. Klaus had moved protectively to block Tyler's path. She felt some satisfaction that Klaus must have been aware of her as she was of him.

Working hard to make sense of things through his blur of drunkenness, Tyler realized that it had been Klaus. He whipped around, breathing deeply, heading straight for his rival.

Seeing the wild look in Tyler's eyes as he charged, Katherine moved aside to cling to Elena. Tyler shoved Klaus hard enough that he staggered backward.

"Take it easy, mate," said Klaus, regaining balance, quickly understanding the condition Tyler was in.

"_Mate?_ You left us. In the caves." Tyler's muscles tensed.

Klaus stepped back in front of Caroline cautiously. Tyler didn't look like himself.

"Seems like someone can't hold his drink," Klaus said, sensing that Caroline might be thinking of her father.

"And now," Tyler continued on his own track, stepping closer to meet him, the smell of alcohol strong on his breath. "my father, too, is _dead_."

Caroline moved round Klaus to Tyler. "Don't do this, please," she said, stepping in. "It's not worth it."

Tyler pushed past her, not realizing his own weight. The force knocked her back. Klaus grabbed Tyler's arm and twisted it. Overreacting, Tyler reared back his fist and landed a punch in the hollow of Klaus' eye. The crowd laughed as Klaus fell to the ground.

Tyler scrambled on top of him, held him by the collar, forcing Klaus to face him. He looked into the eyes of the man who he blamed for the deaths in his family. "You filth," he spat out.

This go the villagers going. But Klaus didn't laugh. He pulled out a knife from his boot and leapt up, trusting it viciously in Tyler's face.

"Keep your hands off her or I'll cut them off." The knife remained firm, inches from Tyler's face. Klaus looked like he might cut them off anyway.

Tyler, ready to take him, did not look afraid.

"Klaus, please..." Caroline said softly. Tyler was looking for a boyish tumble, but Klaus, she knew, was out for blood. Caroline's voice caught as she was struck with the fierce beauty of it, of being loved that much. She thrilled with guilt and pride at the thought of being loved murderously.

Hearing her voice, Klaus backed away slowly but stopped to direct his knife at Tyler once more. "You _will_ be sorry for this." Then he disappeared from the square.

Tyler stood mute as Caroline glanced at him for a moment before turning to run after Klaus.

* * *

She followed him into the dark shelter of an alley. Klaus waited against a wall, chest heaving, eyes wild and dangerous.

"Leave me alone."

But she felt to powerful for that.

"You're bleeding." She reached up to tenderly touch his eye.

"So what?" He brushed her hand aside roughly. "Jesus, Caroline." She shuddered at the sound of her name on his lips. "What's the matter with you? What do I have to do to make you stop?"

Caroline wouldn't take no for an answer, because she knew how wonderful a yes would be.

"Klaus," she began. He looked up at her, and she could see the pain in his eyes. "I love you," she said freely.

Klaus didn't know what to say. His eyes glimmered, bright and burning, before he turned away, taking a ragged breath.

"What were you doing with Katherine anyway?" she demanded.

Klaus darkened again. He turned to face her again and said in a dead voice, "I don't have to like her to get what I want, love."

"I don't believe you," Caroline said, noticing his use of endearment and reached out to his face again. Klaus pulled away from her. "You're lying."

Caroline wanted to touch him so badly, to feel the beat of his heart. Before he could stop her, she'd swiftly wrapped her arm around him from behind and laid her hand to his chest. She said, "Your heartbeat is so fast. I know you feel the same way."

Spinning around, he grabbed at the bracelet Tyler had given her. She didn't let him have it.

"Caroline, you know I can't give you anything like that. I can't know and never will."

"You think I care about his money?"

"Love," he said, giving her another chance to back out, "I'm wrong for you."

"So what?"

He finally faced her fully, daring to believe, and she suddenly found herself kissing him on his soft lips, full and fast. He hesitated, struggling with his promise to her mother, and yet as Caroline wrapped her cool arms around him, her fingers tangling in his hair, he could not fight back. He gave in.

His fingers, roughened by work, stroked her cheek as they breathed together.

"I've been hungry for you for so long." He inhaled combing fingers through her soft curly blonde hair.

But Caroline suddenly got an uncomfortable feeling that they were being watched. She heard something move at the mouth of the alley.

"Klaus, did you hear that?"

He didn't even bother answering. He moved his warm hands to lift her, to carry her to a nearby granary and up the stairs, and then to press her against the roughness of the wall, and Caroline forgot everything else.

"Better?" he managed to get out.

Caroline couldn't reply. She felt every inch of his body pushing against hers as he lightly ran his hands over her waist. His hands searched for the laces on her bodice. Finding them, he tugged until they loosened.

Klaus' face wasn't smooth; his hands weren't soft.

"Klaus..." Her hand roamed, then rested high on his thigh. She was there and he was there, his body pressing up hard against her. She wanted to stamp her body upon his forever, to feel the imprint. His clothes, hers, everything that was between them, felt suddenly unbearable, and she longed to touch him, to really touch him, with her hands and her being and her everything.

Klaus lowered her onto the straw lining of the floor. Caroline stared at the ceiling, somehow feeling both lost and found at the same time.

His breath was ragged and uneven against her neck. The heat reverberated through out her body like a flood let loose. Caroline had to remind herself to breath.

He was opening her blouse, which had become untucked from her skirt. Rough fingers traversed her skin as his hands made their way inside. It was too much, she was unprepared for the intensity of his desire.

A clatter sounded from down below.

They pulled apart.

"Quick," Klaus said, pulling her up and ushering her behind a post, so that only he was visible.

"Klaus!" someone called. He peered down. Two woodcutters were loading a keg into a wheelbarrow.

"Klaus, give us a hand, would you?"

Klaus cast Caroline a desperate look. She beckoned him over for a moment. Klaus leaned over and pretended to shake a pebble from his boot as Caroline whispered, "The only life I want is with you." before pulling him to her and giving him a charged, fiery kisses, one after the other. Klaus reeled, touched her burning cheek, and took off.

Leaning against the post, Caroline just focused on breathing. It had been overwhelming, and yet she wanted to hold that moment safe forever.

Caroline felt the sensation of being watched again and looked up to see a beady-eyed crow perched at the top of the tower cast, looking down before taking flight.

* * *

From behind his post, Tyler Lockwood saw Caroline sense his presence and look up. Shame pooled inside him. His feelings were cut off. Watching her and Klaus he had tried to look away. Instead, he'd stood frozen, horrified, transfixed by the intensity of the wretched sight.

He stood a moment more, tensed the muscles in his jaw, and crept away.

* * *

**What do you think? Do you like protective Klaus? Was it too much/too little? What do you think Tyler will do? Will the Wolf strike again?**


	17. Chapter 17

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

Caroline waited until she could no longer hear the men's voices had died out and disappeared. Only then did she slip out the side door to the celebration, glad to get away.

She saw no sign of Klaus. Looking at the crowd, people had resumed dancing. It seemed no one had noticed her absence. Even Elena and Katherine were now dancing together with the Salvatore brothers by the flames.

Charged with an animal's ferocity, Caroline felt that she could do anything. Looking forward she saw the smouldering coals of the bonfire across the floor. The music pounded as she ran past Elena and over the red embers on the ground. As she danced across them she was weightless and free. The feeling was over just as soon as it had begun, and she ran off the coals onto the ground and looked behind her.

Elena, having followed by herself, was hurtling towards her, shrieking with laughter. They ran into each others arms, spinning each other round. Caroline couldn't see anything, her view of the world consisting of a blur. What was out there was not real. What had been real was the feel of Klaus' hands, the weight of his body, the touch of his breath.

But one thing broke away from the others. A pair of girls who had followed them over the coals danced past, revealing something in the ally that cut through the blur and caught Caroline's attention.

"Where have you been anyway?" Elena asked, oblivious.

_A pair of eyes._

Caroline stopped, jostling Elena.

"What's the matter with you? You know, I was looking for you."

They did not speak for a moment, allowing the world to stop spinning. Elena was holding out expectantly for a response. But Caroline was elsewhere, far away in time.

She was seven years old, a little girl in the black forest, held in terror, pinned by a pair of savage eyes.

Eyes that _saw_ her.

Not just seeing her, but seeing right through her. Recognizing her.

_The Wolf._

She had always known this day had come. Everyday during her ordinary life, she had known it, but she'd never allowed herself to think it. But she'd known.

And here it was.

First there came a low growl, unheard amidst the sounds of the festival, but Caroline heard.

With a roar and one ranging leap, the Wolf was already past Caroline and in the centre of the town square.

Alaric squinted at the monstrous dark shape before him, face knotting up in an attempt to understand. His alcohol-flooded mind struggled for recognition. He'd seen a shape like this only the day before in the cave, but this couldn't be a wolf; the beast that had turned him into a hero was a mere puppy compared to this... _thing._

But the eyes, burning yellow... it's swelling blackness... its fur sculpted and shaped by the muscle underneath...

_Horrible._

Alaric rose unsteadily, hand fumbling for the knife in his belt as everyone watched. The black shadow streaked toward him, and an instant later it had passed him. But an instant was enough. Alaric stood motionless as a dark line widened on his throat, and then he dropped to the ground. One moment he'd been grinning in all his glory; the next, he was dead.

"We're under attack!" someone yelled in panic.

The panic spread through the village as the Wolf prowled. Scrambling around to get away, some villagers collapsed into the well. Mugs were tossed, tables tipped, instruments abandoned. Men did not stop to help up women who'd fallen into the muddy slush. Some were trampled, yet people kept on running.

* * *

Jeremy had been standing by himself, not wanting to involve himself with the 'celebration' but not wanting to be completely alone. Catching the panic, Jeremy whirled in panic. Seeing nowhere to go, he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled under a wagon for safety.

On the other side of the wagon a man was going by on his back, head and limbs bumping on rocks on the ground as the Wolf dragged him through the snow screaming. Once they had passed, Jeremy could see the body of his aunt Jenna pitifully slumped against the earth, her life's blood spurting from her in a hot, black rush.

From his spot under the wagon, there on all fours like a dog, he realized his life was infinitesimally small, there was nothing he could do. Jeremy stayed couching on the floor, his body racked with a sob.

* * *

Caroline stood amidst the madness, in a place beyond fear.

_Why is everyone running? All along, they've belonged to the Wolf. And now he's returned to collect what was always his._

But then four villagers came running past her, hidden in their cloaks, strangely unafraid. Throwing off their disguises, Caroline realized they were Father John's soldiers. They had been waiting for this the whole time, clutching their weapons.

One of them gave Caroline a hard-bitten smile.

"Run and hide, girl." he whispered.

They walked through the carnage, closing in. Caroline looked around, tracking the creature.

The Wolf had its claws planted in the back of Vicki Donovan, but its ears picked up at the sound of a battle cry, and it looked around, a still-writhing arm clenched in it's jaws. It saw a pair of axes descending. The Wolf appeared paralyzed by the storm of metal, but in the last second before contact, there was a snarling blur of motion, too fast for any eye to see, and the battle cry twisted into a horrible shriek. The axes flew into the air, one landing on the snowy earth, the other meeting the face of an unfortunate fleeing villager, his blood spattering.

With one lunge, the Wolf was twenty yards away, pursuing another of John's men, leaving it's attacker fallen atop of the one-armed body of Vicki.

Caroline stared on at the scene in horror, jumping when she felt someone brush past her. It was Father John, shouting as he moved.

"Get to the church!" he cried out over the panic. "The Wolf is a creature of the devil – and the devils creatures cannot cross onto holy ground!" As he drew out his sword he stepped over Alaric's body, Caroline felt that he savoured the vindication. He warned them, they had chosen not to listen, and they had paid to the price. "Your time has come, beast!"

John's men said towards the Wolf, yet no fear or rage registered on the beast's face. Rather, Caroline imagined it was a look if mild annoyance. Almost amusement.

The soldiers attacked, one after another without relent, each to be taken out by the Wolf.

Finally Damon and Stefan Salvatore, feeling they had something to prove after their argument with John, came running forward with bullwhips they had stolen from the soldiers collection. They flanked the Wolf, using the whips as ropes that caught around the Wolfs legs. Most of the villagers had heeded John's warning by now and fled to the church. But Caroline stood, watching.

They thought they'd caught it.

But, ensnared, the Wolf planted its legs and started backing up, tugging the soldiers by their two strained leashes.

The huge men slid forward in the dirt, trying to maintain their balance. Their legs quivered as they struggled with the beast. Their combined weight was, to the Wolf, not much of a burden.

Then something snapped and Caroline felt her heart sink when she saw Damon being dragged to one side through the blood-tracked snow and the Wolf hurling Stefan across the square.

Stefan struggled to get up, but the Wolf ripped him back down to earth.

Caroline looked up at Father John, and in his face, she saw what she would have never imagined.

_Uncertainty._

The man who had been prepared for everything had been caught by surprise.

"It's strong – stronger than we have ever faced before!" One of his men shouted.

"Have faith. God is stronger." John said, staring straight ahead, clutching his sword tightly.

Across the square, the Wolf whirled to face Father John, letting out a low growl. John met the monster's eyes. He reached out and fingered the crucifix that hung by a chain from his neck.

Caroline saw whatever it was that had overtaken him – doubt, fear – had now left him, and the man of certainty had returned.

"_God is stronger!"_

With that, he charged, sword raised. But the Wolf held it's ground. Fearless. Challenging.

It's jaws opened, letting out an unearthly roar that shook the ground where Caroline stood.

A nearby horse, belonging to one of the villagers, reared up, spooked, hitting Father John causing him to slam onto the earth onto the blazing coals of the bonfire, throwing up a geyser of sparks. The horse just galloped away.

John's scream of agony and rage seemed to amuse the Wolf. Caroline could see every ripple of it's muscles as it charged toward the coals to finish off its helpless enemy. Struggling to get out the fire, his sword dropped, John knew his end had come.

_Zzzzzzzzzzzziiiiiissssssssss! _Slanting shadows shot across the square from nowhere.

A masked bowman seated on the rail of the tavern balcony wielded a fire crossbow that spat out arrows repeatedly. The bolts zoomed straight toward the Wolf, who let out a snarl of outrage and, leapt onto the top of the cottage. The bowman sent bolt after blot after the shadow bounding across the rooftops.

With a final spring, the beast vanished into the night.

But the show wasn't over. Caroline watched a figure climb out of the burning coals and smoke. He was burned, scarred for life. But spurred by pain and hatred, by bitter anger and a thirst for vengeance, Father John rose.

Resurrected.

* * *

**So that was darker than I was panning...**

**I was thinking about possible adding a bit in the Wolf's POV in the next chapter - would anyone want that?**


	18. Chapter 18

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you for all the reviews, they are so inspiring.**

**And to .10 - That scene will be coming up now :) hope you enjoy!**

* * *

It was tracking two shapes. _Human shapes. Vulnerable._

"Jeremy," one of them whimpered, barely able to get out the word.

_Pathetic. _But a pathetic whimper rings loud in the ears of a predator.

_That and the pounding of a human girl's heart._

* * *

Moving through the wreckage, Caroline felt isolated, as if she had been separated from the events she had just witnessed, as if she were behind a wall of glass.

She vaguely wondered why she was not among the dead.

Why had she been spared when so many had not?

And why wasn't she terrified to the bone like Elena who was shaking at her side.

"Jeremy!" Elena called again, voice giving way to her panic. "Where are you?"

Elena and Caroline hadn't found him among the cowering townfolk, packed tightly in the church. Nobody else had dared go back out, but Elena had taken off with Caroline soon after.

And so far they hadn't found Jeremy among the dead.

So far.

Nor had Caroline found Klaus. She wanted to call out for him, too, but Mystic Falls was a town that fed on scandal.

There was something else that kept her from calling. A suspicion that had started to rise up in her, that her mind had refused to dwell on._ All this had started when Klaus arrived... It had to be a coincidence..._

She sensed movement close by and looked around, alarming Elena.

"_What?_ Is something there?"

"No. It's nothing."

She laid a reassuring hand on her friend's arm as they made their way down an alley.

* * *

As the Wolf followed the figures around the corner, the sweet smell of fear became more and more pungent and thick in the air.

But what of the other girl?

She pulled him in like a moth to a flame.

_How strange it is to stalk one who doesn't reek of terror._

* * *

Walking down the ally, a clatter echoed behind them. They whirled. Caroline's heart hung in her chest.

The Wolf was coming through the smoke. Ravenous snarling, showing it's dagger teeth caked in blood.

Caroline spun back around, yanking the frozen Elena with her. They ran, feet throwing up a spray of mud.

But the ally reached a dead end. Nowhere to go. Caroline cursed herself for thinking of this. Driven and determined, she scrambled up the wall using the gaps between bricks. Looking down, she saw the Wolf was nowhere in sight. Maybe it had lost interest.

But Elena was frozen. Caroline reached down.

"Grab my hand!"

"I can't."

"Do it!"

But Elena didn't move. Caroline jumped back down, landing by Elena, ready to shake her out if her paralysis – but then, from the dark, the Wolf sprang down in front of Caroline.

It was colossal, taller than any man. This was the evil thing that had buried its teeth in Bonnie's flesh. Caroline felt her courage shrivel into panic.

But she could not take her eyes from the blazing gold of the Wolf's eyes.

The Wolf did not blink as they breathed in unison.

The world went quiet. Then Caroline heard an intricate voice, a medley woven from sounds both male and female, human and animal. A composite of every voice she'd ever known, it vibrated deep within her. The Devil's voice.

"**Did you think you could outrun me?"**

Caroline felt her heart skip a beat. "What-?" she responded. "You speak?"

"**All that matters is that you understand me, Caroline."**

Caroline smelled the thick sweetness of the flowers mixed with the gnarled musk of the Wolf.

"You know my name," she stated dumbly.

"What are you doing?" Elena asked Caroline, her voice trembling.

The Wolf whirled on Elena, growling until her legs gave way, and she crumpled to the floor. Uninterested in Elena's fate, the Wolf turned its eyes back upon Caroline. The demon voice came again, filling her mind, her body.

"**We are alike, you and I."**

"No." Caroline spoke immediately, her very soul rejecting the idea. "No. You're a murderer. A monster. I'm _nothing_ like you."

She reached behind her, groping blindly for something to grab hold of. There was nothing.

The Wolf seemed to chuckle. **"I know your secrets."**

Caroline felt her breath rush back into her body, mixing with her heartbeat hammering in her chest.

"**You're a hunter,"** the Wolf continued, taunting her. **"I can smell it on you even now."**

The Wolf came closer. Caroline studied those gorgeous yellow eyes.

"What...big...eyes...you...have..." she said faintly.

"**The better to see you with, my dear."**

Mesmerized by the intensity of that incredible stare, Caroline couldn't look away from the horror of what happened next. The skin in either side of the Wolf's brow separated, slit open to reveal... _a second pair of eyes._

A pair of eyes more striking than the first. Sensitive and intelligent.

_Human._

Before Caroline could react, the Wolf spoke again, its massive tail swishing side to side.

"**I see what lies in your heart,"** it said.** "You want to escape from Mystic Falls. You want freedom."**

For a moment, Caroline thought like a wolf. She found that she could.

She felt what it would be like to run free, to rave through a dark forest, blood awakened, to closer in one the kill. She felt the vision of this new life overwhelming her, severing her connection to the present.

"No..." she tried to say.

But the Wolf, those eyes, saw that it had touched something, a truth.

"**Come away with me,"** it said. Caroline hesitated, and the Wolf filled the gap of silence.** "Come away with me,"** it repeated.

_I've heard that before._

Somewhere in the distance, there were shouts, the clamor of soldiers. The noise helped clear her head.

"Father John will stop you." She spoke, knowing how weak she sounded.

The Wolf straightened to its full height, drawing its shoulder blades back. Its shadow fell over both girls' faces.

"**Father John doesn't know what he's dealing with." **The Wolf had taken on a new tone. **"Come away with me or I will kill everyone you love."**

Caroline just stood there, mouth opened, not knowing what to saw.

The Wolf's ears flicked back in impatience.** "Starting with your friend here."**

It made a lunge for Elena, snapping its colossal jaw.

Impossibly, at that exact moment, two figures appeared out of the shadows. The masked bowman was already opening fire on the Wolf as he and John rounded the corner.

"**I will return for you."** The Wolf bent to Caroline. **"Before the blood moon wanes."**

As the Wolf heaved itself over the wall, John snatched the crossbow and fired off a flurry of arrows, but the Wolf was already disappearing into the night.

John clambered up after it but could not make it over the top of the wall. Quivering with the strain of holding in his rage and power, John landed back onto the ground, shouting out in anger of losing the Wolf.

Father John lead both girls back to the churchyard, pushing them through the gate. "Here you will be assured of your safety," He told them in a tone that let no room for argument, but Elena still tried.

"But my brother! I have to find him," Elena protested.

"If he is alive, you'll find him inside."

"Wait!" she shouted, but he'd already slammed shut the heavy iron gate behind them.

Caroline looked at her friend with pity. She was still worried about where Klaus had gone, too.

"I'm sure he's safe, Elena. He has his own ways."

Elena stared back at her as though she were a stranger.

"You talked to the Wolf," Elena whispered accusingly, her voice cut with fear.

"I had to. It talked to us." Caroline explained.

"No," Elena corrected. "It _growled_ at us..." The fear in her eyes took on new depths. "You heard it _talk_ to you?"

Caroline realized the enormity of what had just occurred. Elena hadn't heard a word. It had only been _her_. In a town like this, the hazard of anyone knowing she possessed such a skill was monumental. She glanced around to see if anyone was listening.

Why _had_ the Wolf spoken to her? Why hadn't Elena also understood? Caroline felt claustrophobic in her own skin.

"They'll call me a witch. Don't tell anyone." she begged.

Elena gave her a look.

"Of course not. Obviously."

Caroline felt grateful that Elena seemed to have no desire to know what the Wolf had said.

Elena shook her head, as if to rid herself of unwanted thoughts, and walked into the church. Caroline watched her friend, and then she tilted her face up to the sky. A revelation struck Caroline as she stood alone looking up at the spire of the church. Those eyes, the second pair of eyes the Wolf had revealed to her.

They had been familiar.

* * *

**I can't believe I'm about 2/3 through the story now! Thank you to everyone for your continued support :D **


	19. Chapter 19

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed :)**

* * *

Waking at dawn, Caroline could taste the harsh cold on her tongue. She looked around, embarrassed. She had been dreaming of Klaus, of his touch. The image went sour when she remembered the carnage.

_Where is he?_

Caroline fought back the thought and stood up from the church pew to stretch her back. The door of the refuge was open and she could see that Mystic Falls had been draped in fog.

The churchyard gates had been opened, as she passed through Caroline saw a few men at work gathering the bloody remains that littered the square. All was quiet apart from the scraping of shovels against the winter ground.

She saw Tyler passing through the square, but he did not seem to see her. Maybe he was embarrassed about how he had acted at the festival. She almost called out to him but stopped herself, thinking of what had followed, of Klaus' hands on her. Little did Tyler know that she was the one who should have been feeling shamed.

She heard the clatter of hooves as John's horse came into view. Its rider, face blackened and bloody, came to halt and surveyed the carnage. Holding one glove between his teeth, he pulled off the other. Caroline was stunned to see that his fingernails were plated with silver and sharpened into daggers. She wondered if, like his sword, they had been coated with Wolfsbane.

Matt ran forward to catch up with the older man. Father John looked down at him, not bothering to mask his scorn.

"I am sorry," Matt said in a clammy voice. "We never should have doubted you. We will not make that mistake again."

Those gathered waited for Father John's reaction._ From now on_, the villagers silently decided,_ we will place our hopes on him._

He dismounted his horse and slowly walked into the centre, knowing the eyes of the village were on him.

"I've never seen a beast as strong as this. The curse is hereditary, and each generation is more potent than the one before, but I've never seen one from such a long bloodline. I don't want to kill this beast."

_Not kill the beast?_

"Not any more. I want to make it suffer."

He came to Alaric's fallen body, lying beside an overturned table. "I hope he enjoyed his celebration." John said, lightly kicking the wounded man. The body looked so lifeless that no one even flinched.

John noticed Damon, bent over Stefan's body, clutching a leg. Poisoned tendrils radiated from the wound. John strode over.

"A man bitten," he said to Damon, his face seemingly expressionless, but Caroline could see the hatred in his eyes, "could be a man cursed."

"But you don't know for certain!" Damon cried out, trying to protect his younger brother.

"Better safe than sorry." John said, a sinister edge in his voice.

Caroline watched in shock as John drew his sword and plunged it into the man's chest. She couldn't help but wonder if his motive was honest. Damon closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they had hardened. He released Stefan's limb and turned away.

John turned, unaffected, to address the crowd. "Villagers of Mystic Falls," he said, his voice unbroken. "Now it is time to be serious."

The villagers liked his authoritative tone; they wanted wanted to be given a plan. They were impressed with the action he had just taken: Stefan had become a threat to their safety. He had been taken care off swiftly.

"There will be no more celebrating" - John bent down to retrieve a mask abandoned in the snow - "until the werewolf is found in its human form. And destroyed. By whatever means necessary."

He let the mask drop. His men gathered around him. They did not conceal their weapons this time.

"It could be any of you. Which is why we will look everywhere. The signs will be subtle: isolation, witchcraft, strange scents... Your homes will be searched. Your secrets will be brought to light. If you're innocent, you have nothing to fear. But if you're guilty, I swear on my daughter that you will be destroyed."

John saw the villagers eyeing up his soldiers, their weapons.

"My wife died. Your fathers, your sons, your siblings and your daughters have died. Let some of us remain alive to remember them," he said, stepping over cascaded objects from the previous night.

There were murmurs, emphatic nods throughout the crowd, as the villagers looked at their neighbors, friends, husbands and wives. Caroline felt uneasy, seeing how eager her neighbors were to obey this new authority.

Her stomach growled, and Caroline realized she'd forgotten about eating. She ducked behind the crowd and headed for home, glad for a reason not to listen.

* * *

Caroline's father and Grams were there, but all she saw was her mother. Liz looked small and thin, her skin hanging loose like it didn't fit. Her chest and neck were covered in a thin sheen of sweat, her hair matted to her head. Lying on the bed, she was dwarfed by a quilt Grams' mother had made.

Liz's face had been slashed by the Wolf.

The blood had dried in a thick clump over her cheek like a crust of bread, and it was impossible to see how much damage had been done.

Bill looked up as Caroline entered. He pulled her to him. Then Grams took Caroline's hand while Bill tended to the water boiling in the fireplace.

Watching her father, here mind drifted to happier times, to a time when a hug from Mummy would just instantly fix everything.

That time was gone now. Caroline was afraid her mind would shred Bonnie's image. Memory was always decaying. She had so many memories that she wished she would stop creating new ones, because there was already so much experience to make sense of, and yet with every moment she was making more.

She looked now at what remained.

Her father was caring for his wife, bringing warm, wet rags to dab on her face. Was this tenderness? Caroline wondered. A performance for Grams? Or had Bonnie been right? Was this love?

Caroline saw Bill's eyes resting upon Liz's reclining form. Caroline wondered whether he really saw her there any more. After eighteen years of marriage, Bill didn't seem to really notice her small gestures any more. Was that what marriage was, an inability to see who the person was? Was that what she would have with Tyler? With Klaus?

Caroline knew her parents had been present for the same traumas and tragedies, and yet, they had not experienced them together. They'd gone through it separately, at the same time.

Liz swung her hand, sending the tin basin on the bed stand clattering to the floor. As Caroline bent down for it, her mother continued to moan.

Remembering John's story, Caroline went over the details of the night before: Had she not seen the Wolf get slashed? Where had her mother been?

_Is my mother the Wolf? _Caroline could not stand to think about it, and so when Grams nudged her toward her mother, Caroline went without hesitation.

* * *

**Thoughts? **


	20. Chapter 20

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed!**

* * *

There was the sound of heavy boots mounting the ladder, then a pounding on the door. They had come, just as they'd said they would, to tear apart their homes and strip them bare. The inquisitors would pry open their lives, dig out their secrets.

_What do we have to hide?_ Caroline asked herself.

_Bang! Bang! Bang! _The pounding become more insistent.

Caroline kept the chain lock bolted and cracked open the door, expecting to greet Father John or one of his men.

Instead she met a pair of eyes that were burning, frightening. Like those she had seen in a dark alley.

"Klaus?"

"Caroline, open the door."

Caroline hesitated; something in her felt she shouldn't. He pushed on it harder, and the door cracked under the pressure, but the chain held.

"_Open _it."

Why was he being so savage?

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered, forcing herself to get the words out.

"We're all in danger." Klaus hissed. "We've got to leave."

Through the crack of the door, his pupils were needle thin, seeming to glow. She thought of the boy he'd been and finally acknowledged he was no longer that boy.

"Get your things. Quick. Come away with me."

Caroline thought of the granary, of his breath on her body, how it felt like he wanted to devour her.

_Come away with me or I will kill everyone you love._

He hadn't said that – had he? No, that was the Wolf.

But here he was, blazing, dangerous eyes, staring into her. Pushing on the door. Pulling on her heart. Trying to lure her away. She stepped back, unconsciously shaking her head.

"Caroline, there's no time."

It had only been two days, but so much had changed since she was ready to go away with him, since she trusted him enough for that. Since then, Bonnie had been murdered. Her town had been ravaged.

_Since the Wolf had come... Since Klaus had come._

"Hurry, Caroline."

She shook her mind clear and forced herself to say something, anything.

"I can't. My mother's been hurt."

"How come I didn't kill it when I had the chance?" Klaus growled, furiously kicking the rocks at his feet.

And in that instant, while he was distracted, she darted forward and shut the door and slid the bolt into place.

His voice came back to the door, "What are you doing?"

"I don't have a choice. I'm sorry."

She leaned on the door, listening out for the sound of him leaving. Had she made the right choice? Or had fear turned her against the person she loved the most?

When she heard his footsteps withdrawing, she peered through the window. She caught sight of something in his back pocket.

A knife.

_Klaus had stolen a knife. We were seven years old, and we had caught a rabbit in a trap. We looked at each other darkly, a look I'll never forget, one of a shared savage thrill, like young wolves taking down their first kill..._

_A spill of blood trailed down the rabbits neck, a red streak down the perfect red fur, slow enough to be cruel. I hadn't cut deep enough. Had I wanted to spare its life or prolong its misery? I never wanted to know the answer. Was it Klaus or I who had pushed the other into killing?_

_It was my darkest secret, buried at the back of my mind. I hadn't even thought of it again until now._

_The Wolf said it knew all my secrets._

_The Wolf._

_Klaus._

_Can it be?_

Her fears were confirmed. And yet...

As the wind howled down the chimney, Caroline saw Grams leaning over, tending to a still-moaning Liz, changing bandages. The firelight distorted the old lady's shadow, changing it into something grotesque and monstrous upon the wall. Caroline crept forward and gaped at the horrible claw marks on her mother's face, then at Grams' fingernails. Why hadn't she ever noticed how long those nails were... how like _claws_ they were?

Caroline's hand reached out to take hold of a knife on the nightstand, slipping it into her cuff.

Something clamp onto her leg, making her jump and breath hitch. But it was only her mother, caught in the moment when the Wolf chiselled out her flesh.

"Don't leave me alone." Liz's voice rattled.

Bill had washed her face clean of blood and the injury was now clear. Her fragile beauty had been taken from her. She was disfigured.

Another eighth of an inch and it would have gotten her eye. Was the Wolf precise or inexact.

"Rest, dear," Grams instructed her, voice like a lullaby as she motioned Caroline away from the bed.

No one had been caring for the cottage since Bonnie's death, and a half-dozen plumbs were rotting in a bowl, empty mugs cluttering the sink.

Grams set to work, handing Caroline slices of bread from the cupboard. The bread was stale, but she ate it anyway, mindlessly. _Bite, chew, swallow._

"Something is wrong. What is it, darling? Do you want to tell me"

Grams was trying to find out information. _She wants to know everything. Why?_ She already knew all of Caroline's secrets.

Caroline looked at Grams. Her eyes. Dark brown. Burning. Compelling Caroline to answer.

"The Wolf. It talked to me."

Disbelief flickered across Grams' face. "And you understood it?" She leaned her body against the kitchen table, a hand behind her back secretly searched for something...

"Just as clearly as I understand you." Caroline heard the challenge in her own voice.

Grams' hand found what it is groping for – _a pair of scissors._

And Caroline's hand clenched something inside her cuff – _the knife._

They stood facing each other, the poisoned silence winding its way around them, choking them.

"Whom have you told about this?" Grams' lips twitched at the corner.

Their bodies were tense with what was unspoken between them.

"No one knows but Elena. She won't tell anyone."

"The Wolf chose not to kill you..."

Hearing the timbre of her voice, Caroline was suddenly sure. It wasn't her parents, it wasn't Klaus. It was _her_. Caroline could feel it. The Wolf was there, in the room, in the body of Grams.

"...Because it certainly could have," Grams reminded her in an even tone.

"I think it wants me alive."

Caroline felt the air leave the room. Feeling smothered, she cautiously moved to open the shutters.

The morning glow poured into the room, mingled with a soft breeze, changing everything. Both women realized how wrong they had been. Grams let go of the scissors behind her back, and wiped her hand on her apron, trying to rub away her guilt. Caroline, too, felt guilty for doubting thos woman she had always loved. They both relaxed.

"But why you, Caroline?"

"I don't know. But it says if I don't go with it, it will kill everyone I love. It already killed Bonnie..."

Caroline felt Grams' hand reach for hers. Thinking about what she had been driven to, suspecting everyone around her. Caroline felt she had gone mad.

"It's coming for me," Caroline whispered, feeling the full weight of the words, "Before the blood moon wanes."

Grams pulled away, deeply troubled.

"What happened to Bonnie, to all those people, is my fault," Caroline stated. "The Wolf is here because of me."

Grams was silent, and Caroline understood that Grams could not deny it.

* * *

Caroline had to get out. She emerged from the cottage and the winter chill hit her like a slap to the face, waking her up from her stupor. She walked on quickly but aimlessly.

Picking her way to the well, she came across Elena and Katherine retrieving water. Behind them, soldiers were ransacking a cottage, tossing aside the family's sentimental possessions.

"Has Jeremy come home?" she asked.

Elena moved past carrying a bucket in each hand. She acted as though she hadn't heard or seen Caroline.

"Nobody's seen him," Katherine answered before moving on.

Caroline was stung. Elena knew that Caroline cared for Jeremy as if he was a younger brother. Why had she brushed off Caroline's concern? Caroline scanned her memory as she peered into the dark depths of the well. Was it that Elena was ashamed of how fearful she'd acted in front of her?

Or was it because the Wolf had not chosen her? Caroline felt a wicked thrill from deep down inside herself. Maybe Elena was jealous. Maybe all the girls were jealous because of her betrothal.

The dog belonging to a visiting woodcutter ran up, and Caroline bent to pet it, holding out her hand. But the dog looked at her fearfully, refusing to come near. Caroline stayed crouched, waiting, hoping, but the dog edged away, snapping its head back as it gave a few barks, and then turned and bounded off, tail between its legs. Like she was a threat.

Caroline was not sure who she had been, but everyday she felt the person she was fade way, eroded by current events. She no longer knew herself.

* * *

She was still kneeling at the well, pulling at the pump, when a dark shape passed over the water. Her stomach dipped.

It was Tyler, different than she'd ever seen him. His eyes were dark and vacant, like empty rooms.

"I'm breaking off the engagement." His voice was ragged around the edges.

"Breaking it off?" Caroline didn't know how to feel.

"Yes," he said, blinking his eyes slowly as he said it, as though that might help the decision he'd made sink in. "I saw you with Klaus."

"Saw us?"

"In the granary."

The words seeped into her, followed by an awful understanding. She saw Tyler's thoughts storming behind his eyes.

_What a cruel joke to be played on him_, she thought, waking up to the fullness of his feelings for her. To have loved a girl so long, and then to see that love shattered by _Klaus_ in an instant – by someone who swept in after being gone for yeas and then took what he wanted without a thought for her happiness.

"I'm not going to force you to marry me," Tyler went on, not requiring her to respond.

Somehow, her heart broke watching his do the same. She was angry with herself; why couldn't she love Tyler.

"I know you don't want to be with me."

His honesty was a shock.

Because it was all she could think to do, Caroline fumbled to unclasp her bracelet and, at last succeeding, gave it back to him.

"I'm sorry." She heard herself saying the empty words, knowing they were a pathetic offering.

He was gone in an instant. Standing under the silent sun of mid-morning, she was left to weigh Tyler's words. She couldn't think about it too long, because the guilt began to hurt to much. Yet she would not take her actions back, even if she could.

Caroline brushed the snow from her red cloak when she heard shouts from the direction of the granary. She followed the growing crowd there, relieved the focus was on something else.

Matt was standing with Father John and his soldiers, who had weapons at the ready. She followed his gaze upward... and she saw Jeremy.

He was alive. But perched on a rafter, cowering, he seemed utterly traumatized. Or possessed. One of John's archers raised his bow.

There was a scream as Elena came running and threw herself at the archer, only to be snatched back by the soldiers.

"_Ne conjugare nobiscum,_" intoned the archer.

Caroline pushed her own way through the crowd and stood beside Elena. "I saw him at the festival," Caroline shouted out, trying to catch John's gaze. "It wasn't him. It couldn't have been. He's not the Wolf."

"I want him interrogated," John said to his soldiers, ignoring Caroline. "Look at him, the way he's crouched there..."

John had a point. Jeremy looked small from where they stood, but he didn't look innocent. He looked wild.

But, Caroline wondered, what would be an appropriate reaction? He was responding the way they all should have been. Why were they complacent in the face of this brutal tragedy.

But no one else in the village would stand up for him, all looking downwards at their hands or the floor, wondering what would happen to the boy.

"His speech is twisted," John pronounced. "He communes with demons. He practices the dark arts. _He's a conjurer._"

The great Father John, Caroline realized, had only a schoolboy's simplistic understanding of humanity. He thought people as predator or prey, good and evil. He couldn't allow room for ambiguity. That which was not pure must be impure.

But she had given in to such simple-minded idiocy just today – suspecting Grams, suspecting Klaus. Her cheeks burned with shame.

"He's not evil. I _know_ him!" she cried out.

"Better than I knew my own wife?" John finally turned to face her.

And Caroline had no answer to that.

"He's different," she tried one last time, looking up at the boy in question. His eyes shimmered like water. "That doesn't make him guilty."

Innocent people don't run." Carol Lockwood spoke up, "He must be running from something."

"If the innocent are unjust, I'd rather be counted among the guilty."

Carol Lockwood turned and scowled, suddenly mistrustful of Caroline.

John looked to the masked bowman. "Get him down from there."

Elena launched herself again at John, but the bowman swatted her away like a fly.

Two soldiers arrived with hand scythes. They hooked their fingers between the slats on the building and began their ascent.

"Don't startle him!" Elena cried out. It was a long drop.

Seeing them coming, Jeremy tried to move away. It seemed for a moment that he would fall, but he righted his posture only to find himself cornered.

As the soldiers took hold of him, Elena caught Matt by the arm. He looked nervously indecisive. He did not know any more whose side he was on.

"Do something, _please_," Elena tried.

But Matt just stared ahead and did not respond. He stood aside to allow the soldiers to pass by, dragging a wriggling Jeremy between them. It seemed that he had chose his side.

Elena collapsed on the ground, sobbing.

Caroline felt something she hadn't felt since she was seven years old.

Utter helplessness.

* * *

**The whole town seems to be paranoid... That can't end well.**

**Tyler seems to be pretty calm about everything, will he be able to stay that way when face to face with Klaus? **


	21. Chapter 21

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

The soldiers dragged Jeremy back into a ruined barn behind the granary and then dropped his limp body to the ground. His glittering graphite eyes opened to see a grotesque, majestic shape looming over him. The metal elephant.

Jeremy cried out, for the sake of the cries themselves, knowing they would effect no change. Frantically, he tried to scuttle away from the torture device. Anything but that. He made it to the far wall and huddled in the corner, mumbling hurriedly to himself in a whisper.

Father John, who had been trailing behind, doubting that Jeremy could actually be the Wolf, etered the barn. Still, he couldn't show weakness. Matt had followed him in.

"Do not touch him," John commanded. "until I order you to."

Jeremy's chanting sped up.

"Now..." John continued, breaking into a grim smile. He raised one arm and pointed one sharpened finger toward the brazen elephant. "You may touch him."

Jeremy's sobs increased.

"Silence, monster," a soldier barked, clopping him on the back of the head. Petrified, Jeremy held his fist to his mouth. His eyes darted around, but there was nowhere to go. He set his weight into his heels and his heels against the ground. But it was not enough. He was seized by huge, gripping hands and dragged towards the torture chamber.

Father John came closer and gazed down at him.

"Tell me the name of the Wolf."

Jeremy simply shook, too terrified to understand what he was being asked.

John nodded, and the soldiers shoved Jeremy toward the hulking chamber.

But something was stuck, and the men could not turn the crank that opened the door in the side of the elephant.

"Can't get it," one of the soldiers said, moving aside to let the other try his luck with the handle. It gave.

As the door was cranked open, the two soldiers picked up Jeremy by the arms and legs and heaved him in. Then they cranked the door shut again.

"Tell me the name." John spoke at the brazen beast.

No reply.

"What are you doing?" One soldier turned to the other, who was already lighting a fire below the elephant.

"I'm doing as I've been told to do," he whispered shortly. "And you, sir, would be wise to do as well." The soldiers stepped back, one reluctantly, one in grim resolution.

As the flames flickered at the bronze belly, the sound of Jeremy thrashing echoed from within the metallic monster.

"Listen to how he sings of his love of Satan..."

Father John felt Matt's horrified stare. Observant people know when they're being observed.

John took a deep breath, rearing back with it, like a cat about to pounce. He moved to the side of the villager. "What men like you and me do, we do for the greater good. As good men, it is our burden to rid the world of its evils."

"Tell me." Matt feebly tried to stand strong. "What could possibly be the good of this?"

Father John leaned so close that Matt could make no mistake about the level of his resolve.

"I killed my wife to protect my daughter." He let his words have their full effect. "Our methods of pleasing God are sometimes flawed, but such is the business of werewolf hunting. You'd best develop a stomach for it."

"What are you saying, Father?" Matt replied in such a dangerous voice, powerful in its quiet, audible over the cries and thumps, that John had no choice but to stop and turn. He held a finger to the other man's lips.

"I'm saying that you must make a choice. And I suggest, for your safety, that you join me."

He turned to the soldiers. "Do not release the boy until he offers the name of the Wolf." Then he swept out of the building.

"How can he speak? He's being tortured," Matt said quietly to himself, hoping that Father John knew what he was doing but worrying he might not.

* * *

John was the only costumer in the tavern. The man of God was drinking down his midday meal. How else to still the anger he felt at there ignorant peasants who did nothing but work against themselves?

He looked up from his drink to see a village girl enter. John narrowed his eyes, sure he knew her.

_Ah, yes._ The boy's sister. A beautiful young girl, loyal and God-fearing; he liked that. John did not object as she came forwards.

"Yes, child." He acknowledged her presence.

"I have come to bargain for Jeremy's release." She said her well-rehearsed line aloud.

When John didn't say anything, she thrust her closed hand over the table in front of him. She opened her fist, and it sounded as though she'd dropped a few coins. She pulled her hand back and John could see that she had indeed. A few paltry pieces of silver.

His lips tightened; it was not clear whether he was angry or trying to stifle laughter.

"What do you want me to do with this?" John asked.

"I..."

"With this, I could buy one loaf of rye or a half-dozen eggs. Thank you for that gift. Now tell me," he said, coming close enough that she felt the touch of his cool breath. "What were you hoping to _bargain_ with?"

Elena slid the coins back into her hand. They seemed dirty now. Her face burning red, she managed to get out, "I have more money."

Father John raised his eyebrows.

She lowered her shawl and loosened her blouse until she was very nearly exposed and offered him her breasts.

John sneered at the exposed flesh, insulted.

"This is your idea of a bribe?" John's brow was still lifted.

He let her stand there, feeling hopelessly foolish.

"Don't you want me?" she murmured, almost convincingly.

"Turn around, girl," John spat out.

Now it was she who felt dirty. Elena managed to cover herself before he gave her a harsh push towards the door.

"_Wait!_" She cried.

The worst thing Elena had ever had to do was beat the body of a filthy, drunken man off her mother with Jeremy standing nearby. This was so much worse. This... this would haunt her forever. But she had no choice.

"Wait, please. I do have one more thing." She spoke quickly enough that she could not turn back.

"If you spare my brother," she began, "I'll give you the name of a witch."

This got John's attention. "Now _that_ is worth something."

* * *

**How far would you go for family?**


	22. Chapter 22

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed! **

* * *

Caroline's father was keeping watch by the fire while Liz rested, delirious in bed. This meant that he had fallen asleep, slumped on the stool, an axe lying across his lap. She noticed the sunken plum-coloured pits beneath his closed eyes and settled beside him to do the watching herself.

Amidst the chaos, a deep mistrust was growing. Villagers' eyes glazed over, so they did not really see each other.

Some men had assembled a small group, a vigilante brigade that knocked on doors, seeking anything that was out of the ordinary. And they found things, too, in just the few hours they had been searching. One villager kept an assortment of feathers by her bed. Another had a book in a strange ancient language, despite claiming to not be able to read. Someone else had given birth despite being past the usual age for such a thing.

Yes, they found things.

They had a hard time, though, getting John's soldiers to listen, as the soldiers seemed to have their own way of doing things. So the men stored the information away for later.

Lost in such thoughts, Caroline had also drifted off. But now both father and daughter awakened to pounding at the door – _Bang! Bang!_ - then pounding that tore into the door itself. Something was coming in.

Caroline pictured those great claws working furiously at the wood, those huge teeth ripping out chunks.

The frayed wood of the door gave in – but it wasn't the Wolf that followed. It was a pair of soldiers who charged in and took command of the space. One kicked over a chair that was not in his way, just because there was no reason not to. The people were theirs, too. They shoved Bill aside and grabbed hold of Caroline, dragging her off.

Liz never even woke up.

* * *

"Tell them what you told me," John demanded, leaning across the bar in the tavern.

Elena was seated directly across from Caroline but did not look at her, staring through her to the wall behind.

The tavern had hastily been made into a courtroom, the benches assembled into pews. Caroline was tied to a chair for all to see at the front of the room. Heavily equipped soldiers kept guard at every exit, standing stiffly in their armour.

Caroline had seen Klaus enter, seen how hard it was for him to be there, to see her like that. He stood alone in the farthest corner.

Elena knew she had to respond, that people were waiting to hear what she'd promised them. She summoned her courage.

"She can climb the tallest trees," she began, repeating dutifully what she had told John, what she believed to be the truth. "She can run faster than all the girls. She wears this red cloak. The Devil's colour," she added, for those who couldn't put it together.

The rope dug into Caroline's skin as Elena continued.

"And she can talk to werewolves. I've seen it with my own eyes."

Caroline heard the villagers let out a communal gasp as Elena's face turned pink with tears. Caroline quivered with her own heartbreak as she watched her friend go through with it.

"Do you deny the allegations?" John turned to Caroline with mock incredulity.

Caroline felt wooden. "No."

The crowd murmured.

"I don't deny it."

Katherine sat poised and silent. Her mother was curled up into the end of the pew. Tyler was seated between a friend and his mother, dressed in her mourning black. Klaus still stood alone.

"And what was the _nature_ of this conversation?" John steepled his fingers.

Caroline, happy to find that she still had a glimmer of humour left, held back a faint smile. She would give him the information, but I the order she wanted to tell it. "The Wolf said" - she paused to draw it out - "that you don't know what you're dealing with."

Feeling the eyes in the room shift over to him, John smiled showily; he was too smart to fall into that trap.

"I'm sure it did," he said sweetly. "What _else_ did it say?"

Caroline felt separated from her own body, as if she was watching the scene instead of being in it.

"It promised to leave Mystic Falls in peace. But only if I leave with it." Caroline thought, only to find that she had said it out loud.

Elena's body reacted, her shock stemming the tears her will hadn't managed to hold back.

Caroline felt Klaus' eyes boring into her from the back of the room.

A heavy silence took over the room. John thought for a moment. This was better than he'd hoped. He leaned in close to Caroline, as though no one else were there.

"The Wolf is someone in this village who wants you, Caroline," he said in a voice he reserved for the public. "Do you know who it is? I'd think very hard if I were you."

Caroline was, or course, silent. She did not know anything for certain, and she could not tell. She looked again to gauge Klaus' reaction. But he was no longer there.

John was an astute observer. He knew Caroline well enough by now; he would get nothing more.

"It wants _her_, not you," he appealed to the villagers, trying a different tactic. "Save yourselves. It;s very simple. We give the Wolf what it wants."

Tyler leapt to his feet. His friends looked up at him unhappily. He was putting himself in danger.

"We cannot give her to the Wolf. That's a human sacrifice."

"We've all made sacrifices," Carol Lockwood spoke up in a non-committal way, as if she was merely making an observation.

Tyler scanned the room, looking for support were there was none. The villagers were never so united as when they were banded against someone.

Desperate, Tyler reeled back his anger and spun around to where he had seen Klaus standing earlier. Gone, his post abandoned.

Caroline was touched by Tyler's effort. At least he had stood up to Father John. Not even Caroline's family had done that.

Her parents and Grams were sat together, afraid to speak up. They would not offer themselves up now; what good would it do to be looked up together? There would have to be another way.

Her mother still looked ill from her attack, and Caroline wasn't even sure Liz was entirely conscious. Bill looked angry but trapped, as if he finally grasped his own powerlessness. And Grams – well, Caroline hoped she might have a plan, but she also knew that the woman would be risking her own life to speak now. She was grateful, at least, that Elena had not brought Grams into it.

John, always a man of action, took the opportunity to nod to the soldiers, who tramped over to untie Caroline and relocate her. The trail was over.

The villagers were eager to escape the room, which felt bitter with the after-taste of their decision, their conviction they deserved to live more than Caroline did. So they filed out wordlessly. No one dared to speak to Father John; no one dared to look at him. No one wanted to stand out from the rest.

Only Matt hung back to say a word to Father John.

"I thought you came here to _kill_ the Wolf, not to appease it."

John looked at him as though doing so were a taxing trial of his patience.

"I have no intention of appeasing it," he said conspiratorially. "The girl is merely the bait for our trap tonight."

"Of course, of course," Matt mumbled. He stepped back, his faith restored. He turned away, pleased with the order of things. Caroline saw that he would not take any blame, either. She was alone in this.

* * *

The villagers had gathered in small, tightly knit groups just outside the tavern door. Bill, Liz and Grams stepped out and into the aftermath of the hearing, the bubbling of talk subsiding at the sight of them, especially of Grams, who was not often at village events.

Carol Lockwood, though, continued to speak loudly to a group of gossipy women. "...The old woman lives all alone in the woods."

Though it was not the first time she had heard such prejudice, something made Grams stop to listen.

"The fist victim was a girl who lived with her. The second was her fiancé's father. And don't forget her poor mother, scarred for life," she alleged loudly. "If the girl isn't a witch, then how do you explain it?"

Bill saw that Grams was falling under the trance of Carol's voice. Something about it seemed to resonate with her.

"Don't listen to her."

"She's not wrong," Grams mused. "Caroline _is_ at the centre of this."

Bill looked concerned but only nodded and started Liz down the road to put her back to bed. Grams paused to catch the last word.

"I've tried to talk Tyler out of his feelings for her," Carol went on, "But there's no hope. He's lost his senses. If that doesn't sound like witchcraft to you..." Carol trailed off, her listeners nodding in agreement.

* * *

No one spoke to Tyler when he pushed out of the tavern to confront Klaus, who was standing across the way, watching the crowd from a shadowy corner. Coming up close, Tyler slammed him against the wall. Klaus quickly pushed him off and braced himself for a fight.

"What the hell was that about?" Tyler growled.

"Shh." Klaus' eyes shifted around the square.

"I though you 'cared' about her," Tyler sneered, ignoring his request.

Klaus rubbed his eyes and then opened them again, hoping to find that Tyler had gone. He hadn't.

"I _do_ care." Klaus sighed, seeing that he would have to give a genuine answer to make him go away. "But" - Klaus nodded in the direction of the tavern, where Father John was - "_I'm_ trying to be smart about it."

Tyler looked quickly and saw that even his brisk glance had not escaped John's notice.

"You're going to rescue her." Tyler understood at last.

Klaus didn't bother to respond.

Tyler studied his rival. He felt that he could probably trust him with Caroline's safety, but thought that he'd rather not. And yet Tyler was not quite so prideful that he could sacrifice the girl he loved. He watched as a soldier hauled Caroline out of the tavern, taking her elsewhere to be locked up. Seeing where the ropes had chafed her skin red and raw, he came to a decision.

"I'll help you."

"I'm not that desperate," Klaus answered coldly, _his_ pride apparently still intact.

"Oh, really? What's your plan, then"

Klaus shifted his weight.

"You don't have one, do you? Look, the blacksmith shop is mine now," he reminded him. "I've got tools and the skills to use them. You need me." Tyler wanted the satisfaction of Klaus giving in. "Admit it."

Klaus didn't like it. But he liked the idea of letting his Caroline be taken by the Wolf even less. He knew it would be easier with Tyler's help.

"Fine." As he thought through it, Klaus' face lightened. He didn't need necessarily to trust Tyler, just trust that Tyler's love for Caroline was strong.

But what if it was too strong? Supernaturally strong?

"If you're the Wolf, though, I'll chop off your head and piss down the hole."

"And I'll do the same for you. With pleasure."

"Fair enough."

The two men looked at each other, amazed at the truce they had reached, uneasy though it was.

* * *

**An uneasy truce between the boys... will it last?**


	23. Chapter 23

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

Elena, feeling hollow, eaten by corruption and grief, approached Father John once more.

"Where is my brother? You told me he would be released." She sniffled in the cold.

Something indiscernible crossed his face.

"Released." He nodded absently. "Yes. I believe he was."

Father John turned and swept back inside the tavern. Elena assumed that the motion meant she ought to follow. She hurried after him as he easily took the stairs three at a time. He led her through the tavern and out the back to a wheelbarrow standing in the yard. Elena was confused, and she paused to look around. She didn't see her brother.

John shooed away a few gently pecking crows and lifted the handles to turn the wheelbarrow in her direction. Elena saw the load was covered with a blanket. As it was wheeled toward her, a hand fell free. Jeremy's hand.

Elena shook her head, backing away.

Father John stopped just in front of her and uncovered the body as Elena fell to her knees on the soggy ground.

Jeremy's skin was sheet white, met by the cold, his hair a dark contrast. His skin had been blistered on his hands and feet, his face bruised and swollen.

It hadn't occurred to her that she might not find Jeremy alive; even though she'd sunk to depths she could never before have imagined, still something _so_ horrible had not even crossed her mind.

Earlier that week, floorboards had creaked. Cupboards had refused to latch closed. People were poor and food scarce. There was jealousy and meanness and vanity.

Things hadn't been perfect. But they had been bearable.

Now, evil had descended upon Mystic Falls.

* * *

**RIP Jeremy :'(**

**p.s Sorry the chapter was short, but I will update tomorrow! **


	24. Chapter 24

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**As always, thank you to everyone who reviewed!**

* * *

Just two days earlier, Caroline could not imagine she would be here. Everyone she loved had turned against her, or else she had turned against them. Bonnie had died. And tonight she would die, too.

She had been thrown into a prison cell. It was damp and dark, as through she was already in her grave. It was normally used for animals, but the locked iron bars across the top would look at home in any jail. A few candles cast sharp shadows onto the walls. The guards had at least provided some light.

But what did it matter? She had no one. No one had spoken up in her defence.

Except Tyler, whose love she had crushed for the love of another. And that someone else had fled the room. Klaus had not even stayed to stand up for her.

Tyler would find someone else to marry, perhaps a girl from a neighbouring village. But she knew Klaus would find no one, would think of her always, would hold her somewhere no one could reach. He would protect his memory of her as he had these past ten years, saving her for himself.

She wished she hadn't turned him away when he came to her door. If only she had gone with him.

She heard a rustling from the dark and then saw Grams' face peering in at her. So perhaps she wasn't entirely alone.

"Tell me, darling," Grams asked, her voice sorrowful, "is there anything you need?"

The knife flashed in Caroline's mind. She had tucked it into her boot while Bill was sleeping. She wished she could show Grams, but the guard's eyes never roamed away for long.

Caroline's shoulders trembled as a chill rattled though her. John had taken he red cloak, a violation somehow more brutal than the rest. She needed many things, but she knew it was pointless to ask. The guard would never let anything be passed down to her.

"No." She shook her head.

Caroline hadn't yet given up the hope that Grams had not spoken up in the courtroom because she had another plan, but she realized that, like everyone else, she was just afraid. Not of the Wolf but of a man. John.

"Listen." Grams lowered her voice. "The Wolf never used to attack in the open like it did at the festival. Why show itself now?"

"Maybe it's this moon..."

"It wants you. And it wanted Bonnie." Grams tried to work through the logic out loud.

_Bonnie._

"It might have killed randomly at the festival to hide the fact that the first killing wasn't random at all," Grams speculated.

Caroline wasn't sure what Grams was getting at.

"No. The Wolf didn't choose Bonnie. She must have offered herself to the Wolf." Caroline swallowed, forcing herself to say it. "That's what everyone believes." But even as she said it, she didn't believe it.

Grams paused.

"The idea that she would take her own life is inconceivable. Impossible. She wouldn't do that." She seemed to have developed another theory. She moved closer to the bars to speak further.

But the clanking of keys came first, the guard moving to stand over her, a towering presence.

"Visits up."

* * *

At the other end of the village, Bill scooped out a chalky handful of corn and scattered the kernels in front of the chickens. Ordinarily, this was Liz's job, but she was resting as a fever and infection ravished her body. Bill was glad to be given a task, some way to make his body useful other than standing guard over his dying wife, who he had ceased to love. His daughters were gone, and all he had left to do was care for a few thankless chickens.

Everyone had gone home after the trial, wrecked from stress and fear. A few people were outside, women pounding laundry with big paddles, men moving logs. Routine helped. Death, it seemed, had not settled fully over the village, as life was still being lived. All was not over yet.

Bill noticed Klaus making his way toward him from down the street, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with a wooden barrel. Bill continued pawing through the corn as he watched, coating his palm with a dusty residue.

The men stood apart as the wheels came to a creaking stop.

"I'm going to save your daughter." Klaus spoke first, watching for Bill's reaction. "And then I intend to marry her. I would like your blessing in this, but I can live without it."

There was a moment of silence. Klaus had said what he needed to say and turned to go. But then Bill stepped forward and reached out to embrace him, both men heartened by the moment of human custom in the midst of unearthly chaos.

* * *

**What could Klaus be planning? ;)**


	25. Chapter 25

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

The wind blew open the door of the blacksmith shop, and Grams rushed in with it. The shop was in a state of cluttered disarray.

"Hello, Tyler."

Tyler didn't even bother to turn away from the flames. Not for a woman who wouldn't speak up for someone she considered family.

"We're closed."

"I want to thank you for speaking up today," she said, ignoring his proclamation. "That was very brave."

"I only said what I felt." Tyler was forging something in the fire. The thing he brought out glowed bright white, gripping it with a set of tongs, he began cranking a lever up and down and set it on a corner to shape.

"You are under no obligation to stand in Caroline's defence." Grams spoke to Tyler's back. "You've already broken off the engagement."

"She's in love with someone else." Tyler gritted his teeth, resentful that she was making him say it. He had begun hammering the piece into a point. "That doesn't mean I stopped caring about her."

"There a rumors in the village that is the same way Bonnie felt about you."

Tyler shrugged, uneasy at the mention of her name. "I've heard. But at the end off the day they are just rumors. I doubt that it was true."

Tyler finished splicing the ends of his creation. He didn't have much time.

"But if they had been true? It suggests that Bonnie would have done anything for you. She might have even met up with you on a Wolf night, if you'd asked her to."

He wiped his hands on his apron. "I don't see what that had to do with anything," he said shortly, trying to keep his voice civil.

Just as he said it, though, he understood, his confusion morphing into anger. He finally looked at her. "You think I'm the Wolf."

Grams stood up straighter.

"Do you realize what you are accusing me of? Murder!"

"I'm not _accusing_ anyone of anything," she said, knowing otherwise. In the heat of the shop, Grams was wilting, her accusations losing their focus, their intensity. "I'm trying to find out the truth," she continued anyway.

As she said this, though, Tyler's face shifted. It emptied of anger, becoming soft again with wonder and then setting into horror – he didn't know if his senses were lying to him, but their was a certain delight that he could now accuse his accuser.

There was a jarring clatter as Tyler let his tool drop and stepped towards her, almost seductively.

"It's _you_," he said, pointing at her, stabbing his finger into the air. "My God, it's you. I can smell it on you now."

Grams became nervous, having exhausted her evidence against him. "What can you smell on me?" She stepped closer to the door.

"The night my father died, I could smell the Wolf. A deep musk." Tyler moved even closer, "The same scent I smell on you at this exact moment."

Tyler was standing very near now, his eyes burning. His breath was on her, and she felt faint with the heat from the fire, from his accusation.

"What were you doing out there in that cabin? All by yourself?" Tyler did not let up. "On the night your granddaughter was_ murdered_?"

In that moment, the smell flashed across Grams' senses like a long-forgotten name. But that was enough. The young man was right. She felt the urgent need to defend herself.

"Tyler, I read until I fell asleep." Confused, she clung to her alibi.

"And then what?"

Grams was quiet. The scent rose off her clothes like fog off a river. It was bitter and penetraiting.

"You don't know, do you?" he pressed her.

She had to get out of there. She had to get home and check something. She had to know for sure. How had her suspicions been echoed back at her so easily?

She edged out of the open door, letting it slam shut behind her.

* * *

**Another piece in the puzzle...**


	26. Chapter 26

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

In the twilight, the three men worked together, besides each other but without interacting. They didn't want to attract attention.

Klaus glanced up from his work. He was glad to see Bill pushing the wheelbarrow around the square, Tyler busy at the blacksmith shop. The plan was in action.

As Bill pushed, the wheelbarrow dripped lamp oil into the dirty snow. He paused briefly to have a taste of his flask, taking the moment to look around for danger. He winced, noticing that John's soldiers hanging about, keeping watch of the square. Keeping an easy expression, Bill casually continued pushing along. But the soldiers were heading for him anyway.

Bill's body made the decision for him. _Run_.

Slogging through the muddy slush, he knocked over a few pheasant crates ad leapt over a dough trough.

One soldier pulled out a long whip and snapped it at the fleeing Bill. The whip only licked him, but down he went, face-first into a snowdrift. He attempted to crawl away but was soon tackled and seized by gripping hands.

"A precaution," a soldier spat out. "We don't want any trouble from the witch's family."

* * *

There were footsteps, and then Father John's voice emerged from the darkness.

"Put on your harlot's robe." He stood by as the hatch was opened, and then he tossed Caroline her crimson cloak.

She draped the beautiful fabric over herself, finding a small comfort in it. A soldier appeared and clamped her in manacles; they hung loose around her thin wrists. Then Caroline saw someone else was approaching. It was her father, a soldier on both arms.

"Caroline." He stopped in front of her. "I tried to protect you. You and Bonnie..."

_Bonnie_. She seemed imaginary now, almost mythical. Made-up.

"It's all right, father," she said, choking on her own words. "You taught us how to be strong."

Caroline realized how lonely he would be when she was dead.

"You're my good girl. Stay strong."

She felt his hand on her, his grip as tight as ever, and knew that she was feeling it for the last time.

Caroline could feel her heart rising up her throat. What could she say? She was almost grateful when the soldier slammed Bill aside and nudged her toward where John was waiting.

* * *

The mask was made of such heavy iron that it was almost impossible to keep one's head up while wearing it. It had only small openings for eyes. Its cone-like snout was unmistakably that of a wolf's. The muzzle was a toothy grin. Designed to maximize public humiliation, the the wolf mask was a tour de force of human cruelty, and Caroline could see the satisfaction in Father John's face as it was fitted over her head.

Then all she saw was darkness, and all she felt was the weight of metal jerked around as it was secured with buckles and snaps.

* * *

At first, she had struggled against the cruel embrace of the manacle chain, pulling away from it, but it bit fast into her wrists. So Caroline staggered more quickly down the village street, blindly pulled along by the horse, unwilling to give the villagers the satisfaction of seeing her fall.

It was hot inside the mask, and Caroline's forehead was slick where it met the metal. The mask wobbled as she moved falteringly through the slush on the ground.

In the fading light, villagers had assembled to gape dumbly at the macabre parade, unable to turn away as it plodded slowly down the street. The last night of the blood moon approached.

A bystander or two muttered just audibly, "Witch." Others moved their hands absentmindedly to make the sign of the cross against themselves.

A voice that she recognized as Carol Lockwood's called out, "Not so pretty now, is she?" A moment later girls her age voiced cam through, calling her a witch and worse things, assuring Carol that her son would find a suitable wife. They sounded as the they had never known Caroline at all.

Caroline felt someone tugging at her hair and tried not to scream as he or she yanked at her. A moment lather, her blonde locks were jerked free by a soldier who was impatient to keep the train of shame moving forward.

* * *

Chained now to a post, kneeling on the sacrificial alter, Caroline heard Matt's voice above her, blessing her. A moment later, there came a familiar voice in a unfamiliar strangled cry.

"That's my baby!"

With some effort, Caroline lifted the iron weight of her head. Through the tiny eyes of the mask, Caroline saw her mother, barefoot, fluttering in a frenzy. Her streaked face, raised into welts wherever there wasn't an open sore, looked like it was smeared with jam. It had healed in places but hadn't in others. It was lumpy, the wounds deep.

She stopped in front of John.

"Let her go, you bastard!"

Liz's hair was in clumps, and she smelled sour. "Let her go!" she ranted. She reached up to strike John, but her effortlessly caught her wrist.

The village was speechless. They didn't like to see her like this, an out of control madwoman. Another casualty. Even Father John did not say anything for a few moments, letting her rage.

Caroline couldn't look any more and rested the iron muzzle against her chest.

"You should go home," she heard John say, like a disappointed father. "You should all go home."

Frightened villagers reached out to Caroline's sagging mother, pulling her back. Liz covered her face with her hands as they steered her toward home. It was too much to bear.

Hours passed. Darkness fell.

Caroline looked up at the blood moon. It was the final night. She had heard the village doors lock and shutters slam shut. Light-headed now, she wished she could lie down and sleep the hours away, but the chains held her upright.

A dark shape loomed over her. She gasped, a hollow sound echoing in the metal mask. She closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.

"Caroline," said a girl's voice.

She opened her eyes, angling to see out of the eyeholes.

The shape leaned into view.

"Katherine?"

"Elena wanted you to know that she's sorry. She only said those things to save her brother," Katherine whispered.

"I know that." Caroline shook with a chill that rattled her chains. "Will you tell her that I forgive her?"

"Of course. But I wanted to say... I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

"No, I want to."

Caroline tried to lean forward, her chains going taunt with the effort. Katherine bent from her upright posture, hinged forward. Her brown hair fell around her face like a curtain.

"I want you to know that you may have fooled Elena, but you don't fool me," she said, her words hissing like fire. "You always thought you were better than us; too good even for Tyler! Your loss is our gain. Now you're getting what you deserve."

"Katherine." Suddenly, Caroline could not recall what it had been like when Katherine was her friend. She tried to be strong. "I think you'd better go." Her eyes felt dry, she had no more tears left.

Katherine looked up. The clouds had pulled apart, revealing the crimson moon once more.

"Yes. You're right. It won't be long now. The Wolf is coming for you."

Caroline was now grateful for her mask then, as it betrayed nothing of what she felt to her tormentor. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, Katherine was gone.

There was nothing to do but wait. The Wolf would come for her.

But then what?

* * *

**Things are getting intense now.**

**Reviews are always loved ;)**


	27. Chapter 27

**After getting my science results back I'm in a really good mood, so here is another update :) I hope everyone who is getting GCSE results back today got what they wanted!**

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

Across the square, John was standing atop the granary tower, surrounded by weapons and ropes. Below, soldiers were hiding in alleys, guarding the horses, sharpening silver-tipped arrows, waiting in the windows.

All was set and ready; nothing left to do but clean his fingernails with thee tip of a knife. His skin, healed slightly, was tearing at its seams like a baked apple. Matt Donovan joined him at his side.

"Do you know how you kill a tiger?" Father John asked him, looking down at the pathetic figure of Caroline chained to the alter. "You tie out your best goat and wait."

* * *

Near the crumbling town wall, a dark figure crouched, searching by torchlight for something in the snow. He found what he was seeking and lowered the torch flame.

Nothing happened for a moment.

But then the ground caught fire and traced a blazing line into the square, picking up speed as it shot across the trail of lamp oil to the abandoned barn and the stack of kindling laid there earlier for this purpose. Klaus stayed low with his torch, his face lit by the flames, watching with satisfaction as the results of his and Bill;s work took shape.

* * *

From his command post atop the tower, John squinted against the sudden light, watching the flame and smoke fill the square below. He let out a whispered curse. There was no time for this, no tonight. He signaled to his army – an in an instant, his men were rappelling down the granary wall into the square.

* * *

The close inner space of the mask filled with light, and Caroline looked out through her eyeholes, mystified by the flames and the smoke swirling in the wind. She jerked against her bonds in surprise when she heard a voice close behind her.

"I'm going to get you out of here."

Even in the chaos, she knew it was Tyler. But he was different. The power of his intensity, the feverishness of his concentration, frightened her.

"What's happening?" she asked, confused.

"It's a part of the plan. I'm going to get you out of here," he replied. He liked the sound of his own words. It was he, not Klaus, doing the actual freeing. His hands went to work with the skeleton keys he had made earlier in the day.

As he leaned in close, all Caroline could see, filling the holes in her mask, were his eyes, glimmering in the flames. Sharply intelligent. Burning.

Exactly like the Wolf's.

Caroline thought of what Grams had started to suggest. She thought of the note that was in Bonnie's hand. Someone must have written it. Then she thought of the knife.

_Click_. One lock sprang open. Two more to go.

* * *

From his crouch by the wall, Klaus watched the soldiers kicking snow over the flames, stomping it out. Staring through the smoke, he could just make out the two figures at the alter. Tyler hadn't freed Caroline yet._ What is taking him so long?_

Tyler got to be the face of the operation. Caroline would think of herself indebted to him always for saving her life and would forever consider Tyler the mastermind.

Tyler the hero. Damn.

_We're on the same side_, he reminded himself. Klaus scanned the base of the granary, knowing he had to buy Tyler some time.

* * *

_Click_. The second lock popped open.

Caroline's hands were free.

One more to go.

Tyler's fingers worked on the mask without thinking. But, desperately probing, he couldn't loosen the clasp. He muttered angrily. Caroline's free hand felt stealthily for her knife. It would be just like the Wolf to come under the guise of a rescue. Wouldn't it?

* * *

_Whack!_

Klaus swung his axe from behind, using the handle to take down the soldier standing guard at the door of the granary. Without hesitation, he heaved his torch in through the door, but before he could see if the flames found their target, his legs gave way under him.

Klaus looked down, surprised, and saw that he'd been ensnared in a weighted chain that someone had tossed through the air. In an instant, the chain-wielding soldier was upon him.

* * *

Hawkeyed, John never wavered his gaze from the smoke, looking for movement at the alter. The girl was still there, that much he could see, but no sign of the Wolf yet. Was it possible these village morons were making a fool of him?

He heard a snap. It was a small sound, but it was a sound nonetheless.

And then he heard another.

He sniffed the air and knew right away. The granary, too, was on fire. Someone would pay for the night's sloppiness.

"Evacuate," he commanded his soldiers.

He led the way down the spiral stairs of the tower, breathing in the thick, smoky air. It made him heady. As he turned a curve, he froze – through a window, he saw a twitch of movement at the altar, something slight.

Just what he'd feared.

The granary trembled around him, and the walls began to give way, the columns toasted and crumbling, flames rising into the night sky.

"There," John said to the bowman behind him.

The bowman and Matt looked where he did. The smoke had cleared enough to show someone, a cloaked man, crouched by Caroline, removing the wolf mask.

The bowman raised his crossbow but hesitated as a beam came crashing to the ground.

"Wait! Stop!" Matt shouted.

"Do it," John ordered.

The bowman took aim at Tyler from the window. A stationary target, an easy shot...

But as he triggered the bow, something blurred across his vision, something close enough to make him flinch and send the bold off course.

It was Matt, who had seen enough barbarity for a life time, and had jumped at the bowman's line of aim, ruining the shot.

"_Run!_" Matt shouted toward the alter.

His one syllable resonated through the air like the chime of a bell.

John didn't waste time. He swung his arm and plunged a dagger into Matt's chest.

The two men locked eyes. Matt's went wide with shock and pain and then emptied of life. He crumpled to the ground.

John's eyes shot back to the alter. The wolf mask was left abandoned on its side. He knew the moment had passed. Another beam fell.

"We should go." He stated calmly.

Outside, he found that his soldiers had taken on a prisoner.

"This one started the fire." The stronger of the two soldiers thrust Klaus forward. He was in manacles. They'd treated him roughly; they didn't appreciate being made to look ridiculous by a street boy.

"Our men found him wrestling with a soldiers," the other spoke up.

"Lock him in the elephant. We'll light it later." John's voice was cut with disgust as he moved into the smouldering square.

As the soldiers dragged him off, Klaus' shout could be heard throughout the village.

"_Caroline!_"

* * *

**Thoughts? We're nearing the end now...**


	28. Chapter 28

******Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

******Thank you to everyone who reviewed! **

* * *

"The witch had escaped!" Caroline could hear the shouts as she ran. Somewhere amidst the cries she could have sworn someone was shouting her name.

It was hard to comprehend that they were shouting about her, impossible to make sense of all the resent events. But here she was, a so-called witch, fleeing with Tyler Lockwood, who was either her former fiancé or a werewolf.

"Come on," Tyler urged. "Klaus' meeting us with horses in the alley." He still said the name as if it were something disgusting, something mouldy in his mouth.

_Of course!_ Her heart raced. Klaus had not abandoned her after all. He would come for her, completing the action that Tyler had begun.

She looked to Tyler, racing through the night. An image flashed through her mind of the three of them on the run together, moving from town to town. She'd never have to choose.

Klaus was meeting them. But wait. Tyler had said, "I'm going to get you out of here." _I_, not _we_. Did he really want to help her after she had spurned him?

They ducked into the alley. Her fingers ached dully from tightly clutching the knife under her cape. As they reached the dead end, Caroline realized there were no horses in sight.

"Where's Klaus?" she heard herself ask.

"I don't know. He should be here by now. That was the plan." Tyler looked huge, swelled up with anger.

It was just the two of them, alone in a dark, secluded place. The very place where yesterday the Wolf had told her she was his. And it had all come true; she was with him now.

All the pieces seemed to slide into place.

_Klaus was never coming_, she thought.

Caroline felt drunk with the knowledge that she would die. She would put up one last fight; she wouldn't go out easily. If she got him in just the right angle... maybe, just maybe... And as she thought it, there it was, his neck exposed as he leaned out, looking outside the alley. Probably checking for John, making sure he'd have time to do his work well.

He had killed so many so carelessly, and he was trying to do the same to her. Well, _she_ would not go easily.

Glancing up at the red moon, Caroline raised her knife. She saw the blade shining in her hand, thirsty for blood. She was just stepping back so that she could throw her whole weight into the blow when she froze.

There was a growl, both male and female, human and animal. The Devil's voice. Followed by pained screams.

It was far away. Not in the ally.

"Oh my God. Tyler."

He turned and saw her with the knife still raised.

He winced. "Could you put the blade back into your boot?" he asked, trying to ease the tension with a smile.

She sheepishly returned the knife into its place. Just then, another awful growl ripped through the air. Closer this time.

Caroline's relief was short-lived as a terrible new thought came over her.

"Tyler, when was the last time you saw Klaus?"

But Tyler did not answer. Soldiers entered the alley, calling to each other, "The witch has escaped!"

He pushed her through a gap between carts, towards the back wall.

"They're everywhere," he whispered.

Their bodies were wedged in close enough that they might touch but not close that they did. But then Caroline felt his hand on her waist, saw his eyes full of yearning. Her breath quickened. His hand slid down her leg. Why now?

She understood only when he'd gotten what he wanted.

The knife from her boot.

"Sorry," he said absently. His mind was elsewhere, he hadn't even realized. He turned, preparing to ward off any assault.

But she knew it would be possible for them to defend themselves. There was no way. They would be caught and possibly killed within moments. All would be over.

Tyler turned to her. "The church!"

He was right. It was supposed to be a safe point, and Father John should respect its sanctuary as a priest himself. But they had to get there first...

Tyler thought through his options for a desperate moment, regarding the knife in his hand.

* * *

Moments later, John's soldiers stormed through the carts– finding nothing but broken boards that had been pried open.

* * *

Caroline and Tyler had no choice but to run through the openness of the square.

Over the noise of the soldiers searching the town, the galloping of horses, the shouts of the villagers, Caroline still heard the whisper.

"**Caroline, where are you going?"**

That eerie voice, a composite of all the voices she'd ever known. Her heart leapt into her throat, lodging itself there. She knew before she looked. The Wolf had returned for her.

She glanced at Tyler, who had heard nothing. In the periphery of her vision, a dark shape disappeared and appeared again, bounding over roofs. If was only if she looked out the corner of her eye that she could be sure it was still there.

They could see the church now. But behind them came shouts, the sound of heavy boots in rapid pursuit.

An arrow whistled past them, close. Another, _closer_.

Caroline looked back – and screamed, seeing the silver bolt flying straight and true, the one that was meant for her, meant to end her life. Somehow, though, at the very last moment, just when she should have felt the metal bury deep inside her, she didn't.

Instead, she was jolted aside, and with a _thwap_, the bolt lodged itself in Tyler's side.

He jolted with the impact, and yet he was running so fast that it was a few pounding steps before he slowed.

It was in the left shoulder. It had missed his heart, and had seemed to have missed his lungs.

"Go, Caroline. Go." He shoved her with his good arm.

"No Tyler."

She glanced back at the soldiers closing in.

But the church was so near.

She threw his good arm over her shoulder, and together they stumbled for the last dozen yards through the snow. As they held each other close, his blood stained her cloak even darker.

They staggered up to the gates of the sanctuary. Two more steps... but John stood in front of the gates marking holy ground, blocking the way.

"We claim sanctuary." Caroline threw the words at him.

"Oh, but you can't," John replied, his voice razor sharp. "You're not on holy ground yet." He reached out and gripped the arrow in Tyler's shoulder.

"And this belongs to me." He yanked the bolt from Tyler's wound with a wet, fleshy _shlop_.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Tyler staggered back and clasped his other hand over his shoulder to try and stop the bleeding.

Something heaved inside of Caroline as she heard it again amidst the chaos.

"**Caroline."**

She turned to face the Wolf. Its eyes glowing, like twin moons. Its lips glistened, wet and black and dripping with red.

Two soldiers lying dead at its feet.

The Wolf stood over her like a great monument. It was unmoving, the power of its shadow almost comforting.

John's eyes darted up to the blood moon hanging low in the horizon, barely visible between the houses, it's colour paling.

With one decisive motion, he grabbed Caroline's golden hair, jerking her neck back. He set his sword against her throat, using her as a human shield.

"We will stall. It's almost daybreak," he spoke mostly to himself.

"You want her alive, don't you?" he called to the Wolf.

The Wolf glared at John, then looked urgently at the fading moon, growing ever fainter in the sky.

Tyler moved toward Caroline, but John dug the sword into her throat. Tyler backed up. Caroline felt the edge of the blade sharp against her.

Inside the gate, she could see villagers edging closer to gawk, careful to stay on the sacred ground, like children watching their parents fight from behind the staircase rails. They'd run their in the commotion, no one willing to hunt the Wolf that they'd been so eager to slaughter only days before.

"First it dies, then you." John whispered in Caroline's ear, nodding to the masked bowman awaiting command from the bell tower, one arm resting carelessly atop the banister.

The bowman fired at the Wolf, but it jumped, sensing danger, and the bolt buried itself in the earth. Seeing the miss, John reached his limit. He could not hold out any longer, blood-lust devouring him before the Wolf had a chance to. He threw Caroline free and charged full force at the Wolf, sword raised in readiness.

But the Wolf leapt first, crunching its massive jaw onto John's wrist, first through the sinew, then through bone. The hand dropped heavily to the snowy ground, bitten clean off, its fearsome silver-tipped fingers still clenched around the hilt of the sword.

Moaning in agony, John staggered backward toward the church, toward safety. The Wolf pursued him.

The masked bowman let loose with a rain of arrows. Incensed, the Wolf swiped up one of the dead soldier's shields and sent it flying toward the bell tower. The disk slammed into the bowman's chest, splitting his armour, impaling him. He crashed into the bell, sending out a clang of doom.

Seizing the distraction, Tyler grabbed Caroline and pulled her through the gateway to safety. The Wolf leapt forward, but they were already inside. It could sense the magic and protection that was formed around the church that had been made by witches, both living and dead.

The Wolf glanced again at the blood moon, already setting. The sky was showing the first hint of daylight.

The beast knew it had to act quickly. It reached its paw toward Caroline, over the stone threshold, but snatched it back as it started to catch fire. The Wolf snapped its teeth, cursing witches, glaring at its prey with all four of its eyes.

"**You can't hide from this."** The Wolf's garbled voice had a strange lulling effect on Caroline. The Wolf would take care of her in a way she'd never been taken care of before. **"Step through the gate or I'll kill everyone. Do you understand?"**

"Yes, I understand," she said, almost in a trance.

"See how the witch talks to the Wolf!" John sought vindication even in his crippled state, crying out from where a soldier was wrapping his wound.

"**Make your decision." **The Wolf's voice echoed against the walls of her mind.

Caroline thought of all the people around her. She saw them, in all their flawed and perfect humanity. She couldn't let them die.

Time slowed for her. She was struck with the strangeness of existence. The was too much: too much beauty, too much love, too much pain and sorrow for one go-around. What to do with it all? Might it be better not to exist?

She stared back at the Wolf, weighing what it would mean to step forward. Those beautiful yellow eyes. Perhaps it would not be the worse thing... And the idea became a fissure that widened inside her. The solution was simple and dazzling. She felt there was some revenge in abandoning her will. The Wolf would not get Caroline, because she was not herself any more.

She would let the Wolf take her.

She stepped toward the gate. It was surprisingly easy. She was just about to take the decisive step, the one that would bring her outside sacred ground, when Tyler saw what she was doing and held her back, where the Wolf could not reach.

"I won't let you destroy my home. I will go with you," Caroline said. "To save them." She felt her voice, high and false, coming from somewhere outside of herself. She was not afraid of what would come next. She had decided. The world was not real to her any more.

The stillness was deafening as the Wolf awaited her approach.

And then the spell was broken by a movement from the crowd behind her, from the very back. Someone coming, emerging, tripping over others' knees and satchels.

Elena.

Elena kept her head down as she moved forward. Caroline's heart skipped three beats seeing her friend. The Wolf she could bear. But not further accusations from those who she had loved.

"I won't let you make that sacrifice." Elena stepped up beside her.

Caroline stared at her friend, not wanting to let herself believe. Elena gave her friend a brief nod, her eyes heavy with tears.

Damon stepped forward next. "Neither will I." He had seen enough terror and evil to last a life time. No more.

Other villagers followed one by one. Katherine was the last to join them, but in the end she, too, stepped forward, fighting her own bitter emotions.

Mystic Falls felt like it was lifting into flight, a flock finding it's wings together.

The town's people, emerging from it's nightmare, held to another, raising a barrier against the Wolf. But it was also a barrier against the evil they had allowed into themselves.

The Wolf had not planned for this. It growled, furious, so close to what it wanted and yet unable to reach her.

The moon had disappeared from the sky. Morning had come, and the Wolf knew it could not stay or it would be revealed in human form.

Its eyes blazed at Caroline for one last moment, then, with an enraged snarl, it charged into the night.

* * *

The villagers exhaled. The Wolf was gone, for now. They had done what was right and they had done it together.

Only Caroline saw John coming toward her, worse than the beast itself, ungovernable rage lining his face, ready to claim the vengeance he felt he'd earned. His one hand was held out and Caroline reached out to protect herself. But he went for her head, cupping his hand, forcing all his weight into it slamming her skull down against the stone wall. A ripple of shock passed through the shattered villagers.

John clutched her by her hair and raised her face to meet his. "You will still burn, witch."

Tyler charged, and John whipped around to face him, ready to slash with his remaining claws.

But John was taken off guard by a punch from a different direction. Shocked, John looked up and saw Damon approaching, hard-faced, carrying his forgotten sword.

"A man bitten is a man cursed." Damon reminded him.

"It's not proven to be true – it is just a theory!" John begged.

"Better safe than sorry – isn't that what you said when you killed _my_ brother?!" Damon sneered.

With his remaining hand, John made the sign of a cross against his body.

"Forgive your lost sheep, Father. I meant only to serve you, to protect us from darkness…" he started but did not finish.

Damon, who believed in revenge, too, swung his sword. It pierced quickly and cleanly through John's heart, without catching the bone, just as Jon had killed Stefan.

Elena looked away, but Caroline didn't. An evil had been dealt with, one among many. She felt blood trickle down her head from the wound where John had hit her head against the wall.

Just seeing it, wet on her fingers where she had felt the wound, made dizziness come over her. She sank to her knees.

_Where is Klaus? _She wondered again.

Then the world became a nowhere place and lost its grounding. She fell down, down, deep into the center of everything.

* * *

**Sorry about all the Tyler/Caroline that got in there – but don't forget that Klaus will always be her last love ;)**

**I have already planned out 3 different ending, so this could really go anyway right now...**

* * *

**For anyone who is interested, I am planning on making a Hunger Games/Vampire Diaries crossover where VD characters enter during a quarter quell and to spice up this years game, there will have to be two winners, but they both have to be from the same district – and you both have to survive together or die together. **

**There is a poll on my Profile for people to vote on which pair they want to win the games :) Thanks for reading xx**


	29. Chapter 29

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

Caroline re-entered the world from a place from darkness. She looked around, recognizing the blanket. Grams'. But hadn't it once been white? Now it was red, the red of her cape. Vibrant, like something alive.

Snow had begun to fall again, forming huge, pillowy banks outside, as it never had before. It must have snowed all night. The sky was flat and white, like a dream. Caroline looked over at the shape next to her. Grams. It should have been Bonnie. Where was Bonnie? Gone. She would always be gone, as though she had never existed at all.

Caroline's waking seemed to have woken up Grams, too. She rolled over to face Caroline and opened her eyes.

They were wet and globular, her pupils expanded. Round like marbles.

"What big eyes you have, Grams," Caroline noted calmly. She saw that every feature of Grams' face was defined and accentuated. Caroline felt the way she felt when she drank too much water too fast, empty and full and dizzy.

"The better to see you with my dear." Grams said in a low muffle.

Her ears, too, were peaking out from beneath her curly hair, strangely pointed.

"What big ears you have, Grams."

"All the better to hear you with, my dear,"

As Grams spoke these last words, she revealed at last her teeth – oh, her teeth. They looked longer and sharper than usual.

"What big teeth you have, Grams."

"**All the better to eat you with, my dear..."**

Grams lunged –

* * *

**Cliffhanger... evil I know...**

**Just a bit of a tease before I post the next chapter.**


	30. Chapter 30

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

* * *

_Grams lunged –_

* * *

Caroline startled awake with a strangled cry. Orienting herself, she found she was in her own bed, Elena asleep besides her, the morning light spilling across her face. Catching her breath, Caroline stared at her friend.

Elena was not Bonnie, either.

Liz, who had been beside the bed watching Caroline sleep, leaned down over her.

"Darling," she began in a sweet voice that was foreign to Caroline. She had a faraway look in her eyes. Caroline looked at the deep wound marring her mother's face; could it be infected? She looked around, and everything seemed strange, not as it should have been. Objects seemed dream-like, too big, too small.

"I've made you some porridge, your favourite," her mother said in the same sweet drone. Caroline breathed in. The smell of molasses was overpowering. She bit her lip. _Am I awake?_ It was hard to tell any more.

Liz's face was set in an unnatural smile. Caroline ducked under her mother's arm and moved down the ladder barefoot, two rungs at a time.

"Caroline?" her mother questioned, her head cocked to one side, like a little girl putting on an act.

"I'm leaving now," Caroline replied, pulling on her boots, gathering a handkerchief and some fruit for her basket and settling her scarlet cloak around her shoulders. Elena stirred in bed, opening her eyes and stretching.

"Leaving?" Liz asked, amused. "Where to, darling?"

"To Grams'. I had... I think she might be in danger." She also needed to find Klaus, if her was somewhere to be found.

"Oh, Caroline. You don't need to take care of everyone. I made porridge, your favourite," Liz repeated, resting her hand on Caroline's cheek. Her hand felt clammy and cold. Reptilian. Caroline looked up at her mother.

"You're safe with us." she whispered. Elena peered down from the loft, her covers pulled up to her chin, blinking awake, unsure what to make of the scene.

"Good-bye, Mother, Elena." Caroline felt solitary, whole unto herself. She needed no one.

Caroline was met with the sting of the cold as she stepped out the door. It felt right, somehow. She needed a shock of something. She needed to know she was alive.

She tightened her cloak around her, slipped the hood up over her head. The blustering wind swept across her body, blowing into her cloak, inflating it with icy air. She held her basket in front of her, fingers clutching the handle.

No one was around.

As she walked through the village, the snow did not remember where she had been, her footprints being erased by more snow as the heavy flakes fell in a thick blanket. She passed the brazen elephant, lying on its side, hacked open. _Had someone been in there? _Caroline shivered, thinking of Jeremy, of the cruelty she'd learned humanity was capable of. She was disgusted; perhaps it was better to be a beast than a human.

Someone came into view. Caroline saw that it was Tyler, saddling a steed. He motioned to the soldiers, who were suiting up, and they retreated as she came near, perhaps out of respect for privacy but maybe out of mistrust.

"Caroline."

The horse shifted, venting steam from its nostrils into the winter morning air, anxious to go, as though it was in the presence of something evil.

"Easy," Tyler quieted it. He looked proud. Dutiful. He would go after the Wolf.

"You're a warrior," Caroline whispered.

"You are, too," he replied.

Caroline wrapped her arm around him, standing on her tiptoes. She felt the smooth of Tyler's hand against her cheek. And then their bodies pulled apart, making a clean break.

He hesitated, running a hand through his hair.

"What is it?" she asked.

"No one had seen Klaus, Caroline." he said, hoisting himself into the saddle. "And when I find him... I'll do what I have to." She felt the vastness of his shape atop the horse, and then he was gone, riding into the blank slate of the wilderness.

It made her more determined than ever to find Klaus.

* * *

Caroline ran, her feet alternately sinking in the snow, her legs working mechanically, moving her through the storm. She felt sure something was very wrong at Gram's... not that much was right any more. Something was happening, something dark, and she had to be there because she did not have the strength to stay away.

She did not stop in the field to think of Bonnie, or in the grove to think of Jeremy. Her heart did not flutter as she passed the Great Pine. Her losses, her past. The places were indistinguishable in the leveling white. She didn't to stop her bearings but rather let herself be carried by the momentum of urgency.

She passed the river and finally she came to the woods. The path that she'd taken so many times before now seemed endless. She was still light-headed from her injury, and the world around her moved in and out of focus. The only sounds she heard were the gusts whistling through the frozen branches.

She glanced around. Nothing in the brush. Nothing ahead but where she was going, nothing behind but where she'd been. Clean sheets of snow were being blown to the ground by the second. Caroline moved forward, her knuckles white now from gripping the basket, the suede of her boots soaked through with cold. The hood of her long red cloaked framed her pale face, her pink cheeks.

Instinctively, she knew just where to set each foot, having followed the route so many times. And yet she felt she was working too hard to move forward. There was an absence of scent; even her senses were frozen. In the cold, fingers were unfeeling, eyes were unseeing.

She was not sure she was conscious. Caroline could feel the barely audible hum in the trees. Now and then something cracked, but when she looked, there was nothing.

And yet she could _feel_ something behind her, approaching. She sharpened her hearing, tried to be silent even as she picked up her pace to run. _An animal_. Surely it was an animal. _Daylight_, she reminded herself. _Can't be the Wolf._

Yes. Something was there. She was sure.

She heard it, louder. And louder.

Closer.

She slowed. She was not afraid, she told herself. It could be Liz running after her, upset about the way she left the house. Or even Tyler.

But... it _could_ be the Wolf in its human form. Whatever it was, she decided, it could not be more awful than what she'd already confronted. She turned, beaten, ready to face a dark fate.

What she saw made her stomach lurch, almost brought her to her knees.

The dark apparition emerging from the snow brought her back to life, yanked her out of her surrender. She staggered backward a few steps but could move no farther.

It was Klaus, _her_ Klaus, stalking after the girl he loved, the girl he could not live without. His black shirt was torn, his cloak missing.

"Caroline, thank God you're all right."

His face was glistening with cold. He was beautiful, the snow in his eyelashes like diamonds, the cool pink of his cheeks, the wet red of his plump lips. He was staggering toward her.

"I have to leave you." His breath came out in uneven bursts. "You won't be safe with me."

Whatever he was, he could not be bad. An amazing and terrible thought entered Caroline's mind, clearing away all others.

"Klaus..."

She stepped towards him, arms out. They gave in to each other, finally, their bodies fitting together. Her cold fingers warmed on his cheek, and his arms slipped underneath her crimson cloak as her blond hair blew around them. Enveloped in a shelter of white, standing out in black and red, were just the two of them. Caroline knew she could never be apart from him, that she would always be his.

She didn't care if he was the Wolf or not... right?

She made her choice and brought her lips to his.

* * *

**Is Klaus really the Wolf? If so, can Caroline cope with the truth?**

**Only one more chapter to go!**


	31. Chapter 31

**Characters belong to The Vampire Diaries (L.J Smith , Julie Plec ect.) and plot idea belongs to Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson.**

**I'm so so so so sorry for the delay! Please don't hate me. School came back with a bang and I've either been to busy or not in a writing mood.**

**But I'm back now, and hopefully it is worth the wait. Without further delay, I present the last chapter... **

* * *

The kiss deepened until Caroline pulled back, the weight of the situation finally hitting her.

"Klaus?" Caroline took a step back from him. She saw that his face was bruised, a purple bloom, and that he had a candy-red cut over one eye. He reached for Caroline, but she stiffened, her eyes intent on something. His hand... both hands. He was wearing gloves. Soldiers' gloves.

Caroline's thoughts turned back to the Wolf, its paw singed from crossing onto the ground at the church.

"Thank God you're all right," she said, reminding herself it didn't matter.

He scuffed at the ground with his boot, then looked at her.

"Where were you?" she ventured. It was only then that Klaus could see the fear flash across her face like the flicker of a struggling flame.

"They had me locked inside that thing of theirs, that stupid metal elephant," Klaus protested, growing indignant.

Caroline looked down from his eyes, the eyes she knew so well now, to the bruises that darkened his skin.

"You don't believe me?" Klaus said, moving in closer, willing her to change her mind.

"Don't come near me," she said, the strength of her own voice surprising her. She didn't feel strong; she felt weaker than ever before. Her fear was overpowering her heart.

When Klaus reached out to touch her face, Caroline bent down and slid her hand into her boot. Trying to be brave but feeling very small, she brandished her knife in front of her as she stepped back.

"Please don't," she implored.

But he did.

As so she saw herself do something, saw the knife in front of her, a bright line of red across his skin. He doubled over in pain. She turned and tried to get far away before he had a chance to look up.

The gnarled tangle of trees became a blur as Caroline ran, at once feeling every emotion and none at all. She hadn't even realized she was crying until, out of breath, she could run no farther. She stopped, her heartbeat throbbing throughout her body. She watched her fallen tears break the surface of the snow.

Slowly, she turned.

Was Klaus gone, or was the snowfall just too thick for her to see him?

_It doesn't matter_, she decided. She would continue running. She turned toward Grams' house, toward the dark woods.

* * *

"Grams?"

Caroline pounded her fists against the door. "Let me in!"

"Pull the latch, dear," she heard from deep in the house.

Caroline did just that. She rushed inside, slammed the door shut, and chained the bolt all in one motion. She set down her basket and heaved herself into a rocking chair to survey the room she knew so well.

How strange that it was that nothing had changed in Grams' home, a safe sanctuary away from the harsh world. The room was bathed in the firelight glow. Safe. She didn't see Grams anywhere.

"Are you all right?" she called out in the direction of the bedroom.

Grams didn't respond, so Caroline felt she needed to explain herself.

"I had a nightmare." Caroline felt silly saying it aloud, but her embarrassment quickly became terror. Caroline blinked as a dark shape darted by, headed for the bedchamber.

She followed and the stepped closer to Grams' bed. Another step, and then another, until she was close enough to peer through the misty silk curtains. She angled herself and, gripped with fear, saw what she'd known she would find all along.

Its sharp eyes gleamed golden in the dark, a shock to behold. _The Wolf. _

Then a match flared and a candle was lit – illuminating Grams' blurry face. It was not the Wolf – it had never been the Wolf. It was only Grams.

"I'll be out in a minute." she said.

Caroline could just barely see Grams through the curtains, rubbing her eyes, smoothing her nightgown.

Caroline steadied herself against the bedside table, trying to rein her emotions. She reached up to feel her head where it had been wounded.

"I" - Caroline shivered and reminded herself to keep it together - "I think the Wolf is out there."

Grams did not seem concerned. "It's all right. We're safe in here. There's some stew cooking. Remember: All sorrows are -"

"-less with bread." Caroline whispered. She half-heartedly ladled out a bowl of stew and stoked the fire.

Grams laughed. Her face seemed strange through the curtains, and her voice sounded different, her laugh new. But she was the same, Caroline told herself. She had to be.

But Grams' voice was muffled and deep, almost masculine. "That's right. Eat up, my dear."

Caroline wasn't hungry, but she didn't want to be rude. She felt strange. She was usually able to be her natural self with Grams. Just as Caroline raised a spoonful of soup to her reluctant lips, her eyes went wide and she felt the room begin to spin.

"I'm feeling dizzy..." she said, trailing off. Then she looked down at the single bay leaf floating on the surface of the soup, obscuring the tough meat beneath. "What is this?"

Raising her bleary eyes from the bowl, Caroline saw Grams stand deliberately behind the silk curtains. She was outlined, her body was shapeless beneath her nightgown, features obscured. Caroline turned away when she saw that Grams was undressing, but she looked up again when the curtains parted and the shape began to walk towards her.

The movement, though, was not that of an aged woman; there was too much determination in the stride. Caroline's eyes recognized the shadowy face as someone other than Grams, but her mind wouldn't accept what her eyes were telling her – that the figure standing before her was her father.

It was her father, and yet it wasn't the father she knew. It was something masquerading as her father. He was awe-inspiring, powerful and domineering as he had never been before.

She was speechless. And yet, she had so many questions.

"Father...?"

Bill's face fell.

"I'm so sorry," he said, his voice sounding all of a sudden just like his own. "She's... dead."

_Dead?_ What was it in Bill's voice that sounded like something other than grief? It was almost like remorse, regret... guilt. With a hint of triumph.

_What happened?_

"I had no choice – she finally realized what I am."

_Wake up. Its a dream. Wake up!_

"What? This can't be. Papa, no." Caroline laughed awkwardly. She would not believe him; she could not. "You're joking..."

"I wish I was..."

Caroline saw clearly what seared behind his eyes. The shame. And then she noticed his hand, burned. Like the Wolf's paw that had crossed through the gate.

She wanted to believe that this man was not her father – that her papa was a good man. Yet, she could not deny it any longer. She was trapped with the Wolf, surrounded by his evil.

"Father. No..." Caroline sputtered in a vain protest. She had no say. She'd never had a say. "How could you? How could you do any of this?"

Bill looked at the floor, then resumed the air of a much more powerful man than the one she had known.

"Caroline, I love you so much. I wanted you to have a normal childhood – so I lived a double life. Hiding in plain sight." He began to pace the room. "I tried to keep it up, tried to keep the wolf from taking over me. I never wanted this in the beginning. Bit I've been so disrespected. Even by my own wife. I couldn't do it any more. I snapped. Your mother had her first baby, but it was not mine. But you already know that, don't you Caroline. The wolf in me wanted revenge and I released it. To become a wolf you have to make a human kill. So I killed the bastard baby and released the curse."

Bill was snarling now, the sound of an alpha. Caroline was being drawn in.

"I've been planning on leaving," he continued. "For richer hunting grounds."

Taking a deep breath to control herself, Caroline spoke again.

"Then why didn't you just go?"

"Because I love you. I wanted you to turn and come with me."

"But you wanted to wait for the blood moon." She shook as the truth pieced together. She wanted nothing more to do with this man.

"Yes. It is a special time, and I wanted the best for you. I forged a letter for you on the first night, telling you to meet me outside so I could give you your true power."

Caroline felt like she was floating.

"But you never got the letter, Bonnie did." Bill continued with a glare. "Little witch had worked out what I was. She wanted to _'protect you' _from your birthright. I had to get her out the way. So I killed her."

Caroline's legs almost gave out beneath her. By now she had suspected the truth, but she hadn't wanted it said out loud.

"After all those years of being so careful, so clever, I lost control."

Caroline nodded slowly, finally understanding her father's true nature.

"Then you took revenge on Mother."

"And her lover." he said with a demonic pride as he passed her to cross the room.

"My father was a wolf, too. Our scent is strong. Grams never knew what it meant until the moment she died."

He stalked closer to Caroline, and she saw crocodile tears brim in his eyes.

"I loved my wife and my daughter both. I never meant to hurt you."

It wasn't true. He had meant to hurt them, and he had hurt them. Caroline took a step towards her basket.

"Come with me." He told her. "One kill and you'll be like me."

"Are you not just going to force me?" She spat out.

"I need you as an ally, not a slave."

"I won't do what you do. I can't."

"Yes, you can. My blood runs through your veins." He leaned in towards her with a toothy smile. "It can be a gift if you let it. A gift my father shared with me and I will share with you. I'm stronger than he was. You'll be stronger than me."

Caroline felt how easy it would be to give in.

"The world will lie at our feet. We'll be invincible," he said in a dark, alluring tone.

Caroline tried to resist. But now, after all the hardship and betrayal, the only thing she wanted was to be taken care of.

_It would be so easy._

Her thoughts turned to those who had cared for her: her mother, Bonnie, Grams. The good that had been shown to her the night before in the church courtyard. The wolf was not in her nature – that much she knew.

"There must be a God," she braced herself, "because you're the Devil."

"And you're the Devil's daughter," he sneered.

Before Caroline could reply, she saw that Bill had tilted his head to listen, like a dog... like a wolf. Her eyes flicked to the door as an axe blade tore through the wood, snapping open the latch. The door swung open, revealing Klaus.

"You're not so terrifying when the sun is up," Klaus whispered with a burning intensity.

He charged at Bill with his axe. Caroline breathed in relief; this would be the end of it. But Bill reached up, moving impossibly fast, and stopped the blade an inch from his forehead.

"How would you know?" he growled, face clenched in anger.

Caroline pressed herself against the wall. What could she do? She had to do something.

Across the room, she saw that Klaus was locked in combat with Bill, forcing himself forward. The two men grappled in silence, but it was a taut silence, tense with the desire to kill. Bill punched Klaus hard. Storms of dust brushed up from the floorboards as they shuffled. Klaus lunged for Bill, swung back, and connected with Bill's jaw. Caroline did not wince; her whole being had been given over to a mechanical impulse to kill. Bill was no longer a father, a man or a Wolf; he was only an evil that needed to be destroyed.

Klaus raised his weapon with two hands ready to slam it into Bill's head, but at the last moment Bill ducked under Klaus to whip him around and fling him across the room, sending him smashing into the shelves next to the loom. Glass jars shattered as Klaus slumped to the ground. Bill advanced, kicking Klaus viciously, again and again and again.

"Father?"

Bill stopped and slowly turned around to face her.

His daughter looked like a girl in a fairy tale. She was now exactly the daughter he'd always wanted her to be. The red riding hood was loose over her head, and she held the basket out in front of her.

"I have something for you," she said, her voice like silk.

"What is it?" He stared, transfixed, panting, but was hesitant to approach her.

"I'll show you," she said, speaking gently.

He looked to Klaus, who was lying on the ground, then back to Caroline proudly.

"Let me see it."

Caroline held out the basket, opening the top just slightly. As Bill peered inside, Caroline glanced at Klaus and cast her eyes at the axe a few feet away, giving him an order. Bill leaning forward to make out what was in the basket, did not see Klaus' quick movements.

Klaus reeled back and used the momentum in the air to land the axe squared in Bill's back.

Bill reared in anger and reached behind him with both hands to pull out the axe. A growl sounded roughly from within him. It was the beast in him fighting to split though the human surface. Caroline acted without thinking.

"I brought you _this_."

Caroline lifted the handkerchief, revealing John's hand, the finger curled, clutching at nothing. She looked up and met her father's panic-filled eyes.

Before he could react, she made a move she could not take back. She grabbed he cold hand and jabbed the wolfsbane coated fingernails into his heart. He forced herself to hold it in as the poison race through his body.

For a glimpse, she caught his eyes, like a glint in a mirror. Then he fell, forever dead, to the floor.

Caroline stood with tears in her eyes, her world in tatters. Klaus stepped toward her and wrapped his arms around her slender flame, holding her close. She felt destroyed; there was nothing left.

"I killed him." Her voice broke at the truth, realising what that meant.

"I know, love." Klaus soothed her.

"But that means... I've become..." She took a deep breath. "When the moon rises, I'll be like him. A beast."

Klaus rocked her side to side, stroking her hair.

"Not like him." He mumbled, before pulling her in for a kiss.

Caroline pulled away and stumbled through the snow and he followed her. The snow tugged at their boots, trying to hold them back. She fell to her knees and he fell before her. They reached desperately for each other again, tears streaming down Caroline's face as their lips once more found each other's. Spreading out her cloak, he laid her atop it, a stain of red on the white snow.

The snow crunched as they tumbled through it. The horror of what they'd done, the hormonal surges of shame and triumph were what they moved them. Klaus had done everything for her, and she had doubted him. Right now there was only one thing she could do. And that was love him.

His hand moved over her body and found her. She followed, his hand guiding hers. Tangled up in each other's bodies, they gave each other warmth in a cold world.

* * *

Caroline and Klaus made their was slowly to the half-frozen river, Klaus pulling the body under a cloth in a wheelbarrow and Caroline stooping to collect the most beautiful, smoothest stones.

On a dock, Caroline looked away as Klaus laid the body into a rowboat and then cut a deep slice into Bill's belly. She handed him the stones, one by one, and Klaus filled them into the open stomach. When the last stone was added, Klaus sowed him back up.

They climbed into the boat and floated to the middle of the river. Bill's shirt fluttered in the wind, revealing the jagged line of thread, his belly misshaped, packed tight with rocks.

They gently lifted the body and let it slide into the river. It went slowly, his hand trailing last of all, a final salute to the daughter he had adored.

Klaus rowed the boat back to the dock and stepped out, a hand out to help Caroline, but she refused.

"Love?"

"I could do terrible things. I have to leave the village until I learn to control myself."

Klaus lent forward and picked her up, bringing her to land.

"Run away with me." He whispered.

Caroline looked into his eyes and saw the love he had for her. Somehow she knew that they would make it.

"_Yes." _

* * *

**The End.**

**I hope you all enjoyed - thank you for sticking with me :) Let me know what you thought! **


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